


The Fire of Ill Friends

by JoanieLSpeak



Category: Hannibal (TV), Norse Religion & Lore, Valhalla Rising
Genre: Canon Related, Dreams and Nightmares, Eye Trauma, Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV First Person, POV Will Graham, References to Depression, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Self-Mutilation, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 16:30:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoanieLSpeak/pseuds/JoanieLSpeak
Summary: After his evisceration, Will returns to work and suddenly finds himself emotionally invested in yet another FBI case. There is something drawing him to this one-eyed perpetrator now in police custody. He feels a connection that harkens back to another relationship he had months before.When he's suddenly plagued by strange visions and the demons of his past, he begins to realize that returning to his old life after his brutal attack is no longer a viable option.





	1. The Wanderer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hannibalsimago](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannibalsimago/gifts).



> This is set toward the end of the eight-month time jump in S3E2 before Will heads to Europe. I have Will going back to work temporarily before something spurs his need to find his former doctor. Let's call it canon divergent to cover my ass from potential plot holes.
> 
> If you enjoy the Writer's Notebooks for [Unhitched](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11745507/chapters/26469318), I made one for this fic too. I include all the information you need to find all my reference material (The Prose Edda, The Havamal, The Poetic Edda, etc) in my [Writer's Notebook](https://www.joanielspeak.com/2018/09/16/fire-of-ill-friends/).
> 
> I hope you enjoy and as always, comments are welcome and cherished.

* * *

He'd been deemed one of those dubious _bad guys_ – a vicious criminal with no relevant past and undeserving of even basic human rights. He was an animal, and that was that.

Men fell like dominoes at his arrest. They wanted to charge him as fast as humanly possible, but he had no identity nor a clear motive for his brutal retaliation against the Baltimore police department. To me, determining who he was and from where he’d fallen was far more important than quickly booking him over a B&E and his subsequent violent takedown.

To his captors, he was just a homeless man found in an abandoned building downtown. He was probably ill and possibly injured, but that was inconsequential. What he needed was a psychological assessment, counseling, and a hot meal, but instead got the long arm of the law, and he wasn’t going down without a fight. When boxed in and desperate, who among us could blame him?

The ungodly amount of blood was part of the issue. That and, of course, his violent aggression directed at our boys in blue. They had wanted him to pay for his trivial misdemeanor and apparently bit off more than they could chew. There’s nothing more alarming than battling a blood-covered heathen, especially one that appears to be feral. Since we live in a world of extremes, to the police, he was either severely injured or had butchered and cannibalized someone. They chose to assume the worst.

After he was placed in custody, you would think the police would’ve confirmed an injury or not. Why had he not been examined by a doctor after he collapsed? The answer was simple: no one would go near him. No one was willing to risk their life for a man who clearly didn’t want to be helped. He was brutal. He was terrifying, even lifeless at the bottom of a staircase. He was inhuman to his apparent rescuers, which is quite ironic.

But how threatening was he, really?

“You tell us,” they say, but what they mean is, “You tell us what we want to hear, and we’ll let you go home and feed your dogs.”

It’s cool for September in Quantico, Virgina. I’m hungry and exhausted and almost to my car after my Wednesday class, when my boss grabs me. The FBI has never held its educators’ comfort or personal lives in high esteem. My time is their time, and we both know it.

My boss wants facts or extrapolated theories in the next twenty-four hours, so in true FBI fashion, he throws me in a black sedan and offers me a bottle of water, my makeshift dinner for the day.

I’ve never claimed to be a miracle worker or at all important to humanity. If anything, I’m as sick in the head as the violent wanderer we’re driving across the state to meet; I merely have better PR ... sometimes. But what I can do, is draw overarching conclusions about how to find and ensnare unidentified suspects. I create theories based on gut feelings. It may sound wildly inappropriate to base an arrest on a gut feeling, but the evidence is always there. I just interpret it with a bit more panache.

Oftentimes the call comes in the night. “Meet me there in three hours,” he’ll tell me. So in three hours, I’m there, bleary-eyed and at the disposal of my FBI boss. I scrutinize the bloody mess he presents to me and poof, there it is – a three dimensional model of the scene rebuilt layer by layer in my mind, waiting to be explored and exploited. A cage then erupts from the ground and I’m trapped – now a villain, a creature, a misunderstood monster – creeping in windows, ducking down hallways, or racing past trees, my cloven feet thudding against the cold, wet earth. In my fabricated tableaus, I bloody my hands or violate bodies, pulling triggers and slicing flesh in the same vein as the fiend being sought by the police. In an aching, empty heartbeat, I become the thing of nightmares.

When the vile deed is done, and I am back in what appears to be reality, I can look down at a breathless victim, sprawled out and carved up, and see, not the doings of the monster, but the path that led him astray. If you follow that path back in time, you will find our future butcher, often cowering alone in the unrelenting darkness. If you can find what made the beast, you will find the beast itself.

But in the end, I’m at the mercy of my own imagination. I can only draw conclusions from the bank of my own knowledge, but at least I’ve seen much in my thirty-five years alive. I’ve watched fathers drink themselves to death. I’ve watched families crumble and fade. I’ve chased rapists across countries and murderers through time. I’ve been deceived, eviscerated, and damaged beyond repair. These experiences have strengthened my unique set of skills, driving me further into the night to find the men I hunt.

But one cannot cross that malevolent veil and not bring back a souvenir. And so, after I creep and tumble into the minds of the outcasts of society, I wake up a little bit darker – my mind a little less stable – each time I wander away. They call my unique ability a superpower, but that is an unfortunate and highly inappropriate misnomer.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting from me,” I say from the front seat of the sedan currently racing down the highway. His information is brief and tip-toes around my area of expertise since I help _catch_ the bad guys, I don’t grill them after their arrest. I’m a teacher, not a cop, and certainly not a special agent anymore. This is a detail the director of the Behavioral Science Unit frequently overlooks.

“Thirty minutes, Will. That’s all I’m asking for. Study him and see if you can get a name, or maybe where the hell he came from.”

“You don’t have his name,” I say. It’s not a question. The fighter won’t speak to anyone, he tells me. “And the man’s injured?”

His face is emotionless, and he stares out the windshield. “Partially blind, too,” he says.

I have to scoff at his somber reply. How did a partially blind and injured, unarmed man incapacitate six police officers and federal agents?

My boss understands me more than I’m often comfortable with, so he answers my internal dispute, “He fights about as dirty as he looks.”

Of course he does. “Don’t they all?”

“This one’s brutal, Will. He was taken down with one shot, but it barely grazed his shoulder. Lucky for us, he backed up and fell down a flight of stairs. The concrete knocked him out cold. Looked like he broke his neck, but he’s alive.”

“Where is he now?”

“Hopefully still cuffed to a bed at Mercy Medical.”

My head shakes without any prompting from my brain. We’re driving to Baltimore, away from my home in Wolf Trap, and it’s already seven thirty. “You know I have classes tomorrow.”

“Not anymore.”

He’s so smug, but I lost my ability to say no to him the day he ripped me from the relative comfort of my lecture hall and made me a special agent the first time. I sold my soul for the opportunity to become those that lurk in the darkest corners of society. But I have stopped bad men, and I have saved some victims. I’m obligated now, and my hands are both tied and blood-stained because of it.

It’s almost nine when we get to Mercy. I’m far too familiar with this particular hospital and as soon as the doors rush open, the stench of latex and bleach makes me gag. As we stand at the check-in, my boss confirming our arrival, I’m struck by a memory – not one from the near past but the far.

Baton Rouge Medical, that’s what this place reminds me of. My neighbor died in Baton Rouge. She was like a mother to me, the wife of a war criminal, and an accomplished seamstress. She was the only person to ever remember my birthday. I thought of myself as her third son, since her other two boys had grown and left years before. I came to her house more than her husband would have liked, but I was a latchkey kid and had nowhere else to go.

The birthday celebrations stopped when I was fourteen. I went to visit her at Baton Rouge Med after school one day, and she was gone – no explanation, no goodbye – just gone. Death is like that, though. In an instant, we plunge into darkness and never wake up. We simply vanish from this world without a goodbye, a reason, or sometimes even a trace.

Up several flights of winding stairs and past no fewer than nine very pissed-off cops, we arrive. My boss is right about the dirt; the man is covered in red dust. A sedative is keeping him calm. Though weak, his fists randomly burst to life, violently cracking the cuffs against the gurney rails. He loses his strength quickly though, and retreats back onto the bed, his wrists now raw and tinged with fresh blood.

“I’m still unclear as to what you want me to do,” I say to my boss. Interrogation is not my forte and the perpetrator has already been caught. My time would be far better spent grading papers.

“Work your magic.” He winks and steps out of the room, leaving nothing between me and this potentially deranged psychopath but an inch of steel chain.

Again, I’m left reeling over the blatant disregard for what it is that I do. There is nothing supernatural about me. I’m empathic, not telepathic. It doesn’t take a genius to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It just takes practice and a little altruism … though that is the hardest part to grasp. But regardless, it’s a skill, not magic.

I’m still safely at the foot of the bed when I begin, “My name is Will Graham. I’m a Special Agent with the FBI.” Nothing about him hints that he understands my words or my attempt at a non-hostile introduction. “Do you know where you are?”

His uninjured, inky-black eye stares back at me, not pleading or threatening, just assessing my puzzled gaze.

“You’re at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland,” I continue. “You hit your head and you killed three people. You severely injured three others. Can you tell me your name?”

No.

His face is chiseled with lofty cheekbones, a thick brow ridge, and wide forehead. He looks Baltic or Scandinavian, tall and imposing with an elongated Nordic skull and a pronounced jaw. His unkempt, dark hair is twisted and knotted down the back of his head. It’s strange; he looks like a warrior from an Arthurian legend.

“Do you speak English?” I wonder. “Español?” It’s a shot in the dark. “Italiano? No? Parlez-vous Français? Um, wait, Deutsch?”

Still no reaction, not even a flinch. In fact, his eyes have gotten darker, possibly with rage. I’ve been around violent criminals before, but this one is oddly arresting, and I can’t stop studying him.

In addition to the cuts and scratches across his face, a thin scar snakes around his right eye like a shepherd’s crook. His left, however, is marred or possibly gone, as though the lid had been turned to soft, fleshy putty, worked and then adhered in a mass over his eye, effectively sealing the socket. A shaggy, short, graying beard frames his pallid lips which remain silent despite the tempest that periodically rages through his stiff upper body. He makes no noise at all – no grunt when he arches his back; no cries of pain when he fights his restraints; no questions or responses until. “Norsk?” I suddenly wonder aloud.

I don’t know why I said it, but his head cocks back and he looks down his broken nose at me, still unblinking.

“N-Norsk?” I repeat, stumbling over this simple word.

His reaction is unaltered, so I step closer to better view his dirt-streaked face. Was it even a reaction or did I imagine it?

“Are you Norwegian?” As though asking this question in English is useful. “Uh, takk skal … do ha?” I grimace and shake my head. Why am I thanking him? I don’t speak Norwegian. I only know three phrases, and I’m not about to ask him where the bathroom is.

His single, glaring eye stares back at me, unamused or possibly disgusted. Now we’re both troubled by my mispronounced and inappropriate declaration of gratitude – that is, if he understood me at all.

His hands suddenly jerk, cracking the metal cuffs against the gurney rails again, and I falter back. I’m invading his space and he let me know it – budding communication; this is good, though startling.

He shakes his right hand, listening to the metal ring drag against the plastic bed frame. He’s moving carefully with a focused diligence, scratching the cuff on the rail as he tests his range of movement. Watching his eye widen in satisfaction has me instinctively pawing my right hip – I’m unarmed. I came straight from my classroom at the academy, not my home.

His right hand stops and he stares at my face, his single eye trailing between my two. He twists his left hand and we both listen to the scraping of that cuff against plastic and metal. My eyes dart to his other hand and I know he’s watching my attention be diverted to his restraints.

Are they loose? Has he picked them? Is he strong enough to crack the bed rails? Adrenaline pumps down my spine and the hair on my neck stands. The room is basically empty. Unused IV tubes have been discarded on the bloody floor. Small vials of sedatives are abandoned on the counter. There’s nothing useful in here. I’m weaponless.

He remains focused on me as he slowly scrapes his fingernails over the rails – left hand, right, left …  My heart quickens and my eyes flick between his hands as I follow the scratching.

Right.

Left.

Right.

From above, an icy blast of cold recirculated air whirs from a vent, and I shudder, breaking my hypnotized gaze. I know what he’s doing. It’s subtle and conniving – it’s ominous. He’s showing me how astute he really is.

This is not the crazed heroin addict everyone keeps assuming. This isn’t a violent drunk. This man is cunning. My eyes return to his, and I catch the beginnings of a smirk that immediately falls from his face. He’s happily watching me prickle with apprehension. He’s controlling the movement of my eyes.

I break the haunting silence of the room. “Not a talker.”

His hands fall back to the bed.

“Can I get you anything?” An empty offer, though if he decided to speak right then, I’d be more than obliged. “I’d offer you a drink, but honestly, I’m afraid you’ll bite me.”

He’s contented now and ignoring me as he settles back onto the gurney. He closes his eye, finished with me, and I can’t say I blame him. I prattled on, thanked him in Norwegian, and then played his little puppeteering game. His lucidity spurs on my desire to piece together his story. Nothing about his behavior fits a profile. He’s not unpredictably violent like I was told. He’s not mentally handicapped. He’s an intelligent, bloodied man intentionally bound to a medical gurney. But by whose intention? I could make a fair guess.

I can’t help but stare even though he now lies motionless. It feels as invasive as watching someone sleep, though I know he’s expecting me to watch him. He’s not yet wearing hospital robes and his injuries are still uncovered – some still seeping onto the crisp sheets now stained red and sandy. He’s not clothed in the hodgepodge remnants of a church’s cardboard box charity, but a patched and coarse wool shirt and a roughly hewn leather vest that covers him from shoulder to mid-thigh. His muddy pants are cut and whip stitched in the same vein. This is the attire of a man who disappeared from modern society. This is a man who was lost and unfortunately found.


	2. Spearman

* * *

“It’s his own blood,” says the tech as we walk back the long hall to the forensics lab.

“All of it?”

“Every sample we got.”

“That’s a lot of blood.” The man was soaked in it.

“There’s a curiouser bit though,” he says to me, wagging his finger. This whole situation is curious, how much stranger could it get? Then he shares, “He’s covered in his own blood – that’s easy enough to determine – but what’s mixed with the blood … this is where it gets a little freaky-deaky. Every sample contained red clay, and not just any red clay, but a very specific red clay from the Bay of Fundy.”

“So it’s from Canada. Why’s he covered in Canadian red clay?”

“That’s not my problem, Will, but what is my problem are those black bits they pulled from the gash on the back of his leg. Those little mysteries are no longer mysterious. It’s Onondaga limestone.” His eyes widen and he nods as though this is some amazing revelation.

“Rock,” I say.

“Not rock, Will, _Onondaga limestone_ – a stone used to make Native American spearheads … in _Canada.”_

This team is comprised of the best techs the FBI has, and I am just staring at him, unblinking. “That’s quite an assumption you’re making there … a rock is now magically a spearhead?” These are the best techs, Will. They probably know what they’re talking about, but they have been wrong in the past.

“No, Will, it’s not an assumption. This particular type of rock hit him hard and broke off in his leg. I pieced it back together and emailed scans to a friend – a professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth. He called it a DeWale point and said they’re most often found east of Toronto. That’s in _Canada,_ Will.”

The best techs … deep breath. “Any idea how old it is?”

His eyes light up, eager to share. _“Eleventh_ century.”

“So what you’re telling me is that he’s Canadian.”

“And possibly from the eleventh century, yes.”

I don’t laugh, but I do huff in contempt. It doesn’t go unnoticed, so he continues, “All right … I know. All we’ve got is that at some point – in the very near past – Spearman was in Canada. Quebec, more than likely.”

“Spearman?”

“That’s what I’m calling him … ‘cause of the spearhead.”

“Alleged spearhead.” Let’s not start mixing theories; that only muddies the water, and frankly, it was already so murky it would take weeks to settle. The tech is unappreciative of my tone, apparently. His friend at Dartmouth must be a big-shot.

“Is the spearhead on trial now, Will?”

“It is for me,” I say. “But thanks for figuring out that he’s Canadian.” My non-conviction prompts a couple sheets of paper to be thrust into my hand.

It ended up being a spearhead. The techs aren’t incompetent, but it’s always best to question what you see with your own eyes; you never can be too sure. Professor Dartmouth seemed convinced – the knapping, the length of the tip, and angle of entry – it all said speartip so I add this new mystery to the growing pile of unanswered questions.

“So what are we thinking, a wild man lost in northern Canada?” he wonders.

“I have no idea. He doesn’t speak, he’s violent, and he is not responding to the sedatives. He’s metabolizing them at an astronomical rate. He’s slowed, but not knocked out. What makes that happen?”

The tech shrugs.

“So he’s either making or finding spearheads to hunt with. What’s he hunting?” I ask. “Wild Canadian boar? Maybe seals? Did you guys run any blood tests?”

“The gamut. I didn’t think about seals, but if he stayed alive eating a high-fat diet like the Inuits, he’d have an enlarged liver to break down all that protein. But his blood work would identify a diet that extreme, and it doesn’t, so there’s no physical indication that he’s been surviving in Canada that long.”

“But if he’s suddenly off an Arctic diet, though, he could have extensive liver damage. That’s going to slow metabolism,” I say. “Sedatives won’t work, they’ll just build up.”

“Are we killing him then, with all the drugs?”

“Well _we_ aren’t, but the doctors probably are. But how did he get from the dusty red clay of the Canadian shores to an abandoned building in West Baltimore covered in blood, and unable, or unwilling, to speak?” This is a scenario I’ve never encountered. My knowledge banks are useless here.

“Well, he didn’t walk. Did he drive?”

“I don’t think he drives, but that’s just an educated guess,” I say.

A new tech joins us with her own input, “Did someone drop him off like a bad dog?” Both techs laugh, but this raises a bigger question.

“If he’s finding or knapping spear tips to hunt seal,” I wonder, “Then who threw the spear that landed in his leg?”

They both raise their eyebrows. Oh boy. I’ve stumped again.

She hums and says, “Maybe it was a tribal feud.”

“In Quebec?!” he snaps. It does seem farfetched.

I close my eyes and think. “That still doesn’t explain how he got here.” The ill man’s piercing eye suddenly studies me from behind my closed eyelids. His lips part to speak, but only obscurity flows out of his mouth like gobs of pitch. “He’s also not Native American,” I say, returning my attention to the techs. “He’s Northern European.”

She scoffs and shakes her head. “A European from Canada. That shouldn’t be hard to nail down …”

“Have either of you run his clothes yet?”

“When we get his clothes, I’ll let you know,” he says. “Last I heard they were still on his body.”

No one had changed him. His blood-soaked rags were still clinging to his skin because no one was willing to approach him.

I am exhausted, and my dogs need let out, so I leave the techs and head back down the hall, stopping to grab my jacket from the office. It’s going to be a very long night, and I’ll be driving back to Mercy first thing in the morning. Best to get a good night’s sleep while I’m still capable of doing so.


	3. One-eye

* * *

By the time I make it to our blind guest’s private wing, I’ve only managed to eat half of the plain, tasteless bagel I swiped from the police campout at the hospital. Down the hall, there are no cops outside his door, so I pick up my pace and burst into the room to find my boss in there alone, ready at the helm with an answer.

“X-rays,” he says, and his fingers return to strumming his chair.

“Why x-rays?”

“Doctor’s orders. They gave him a new sedative – practically a horse tranquilizer. Doc wants to clean him up, and I guess they figured they’d get as much info as they could while he’s out. He seems healthy, but the fall may have cracked his skull. Gonna do a CAT scan, too – look for swelling.”

“They’re cleaning him up?” What a horrible idea. They’re going to wash away all the trace evidence. The techs hadn’t even scraped under his nails yet; the knowledge and effort that’s about to be wasted is unimaginable.

I duck out of the doorway, running down the hall to stop them, but he calls, stopping me mid-stride. I’m still a dog on a chain after all.

“Let it go, Will! We have his clothes. Let old One-eye get cleaned up; maybe he’ll talk then.”

My jaw clenches and I realize I still have an unchewed bite in my mouth. It tastes like paste now. “Old One-eye? Really?” I scoff, wandering back to him.

“Best name I could come up with,” he says. My glare must be more egregious than I think, because he holds up his hands in defense. “What would you call him then?”

“ John Doe. Give the man some dignity.”

“And naming him John Doe gives him dignity? There’s probably a half dozen John Does in the morgue downstairs.” My boss is going to lecture me about dignity now? He’d applauded the tasteless name of the Evil Minds Research Museum. He doesn’t give dignity to criminals. He strips it away. “He killed six good men, Will. Men with families. And how is calling him John Doe better than calling him by a physical trait? At least One-eye is specific to him.”

“So instead of _John Doe,_ if you wound up injured and unable to speak, you’d prefer to be called _Chubby Greying Black Man?”_

I overstepped my bounds and am sure of this immediately. As inept as I am with social interactions, I fully recognize the crazed look in his narrowing eyes. Now I am raising my hands in defense. “That’s not what I meant.” I’d redact my last statement if it was physically possible, but time marches on.

He doesn’t believe me anyway, despite my falling gaze and sweating brow. He steps closer until his menacingly wide shoulders are only the depth of his gut away from me.

“I don’t need to remind you who I am, do I?” He’s fuming, but at least his hot breath is sweet. Apparently, I’d missed the blueberry bagels.

“No, a reminder is not necessary,” I say, “but I’m not calling him One-eye.”

* * *

The three techs were huddled around the light board when I got to the lab after class. “So, I’m confused,” one of them says, “This guy’s still alive, right? What is this? Osteogenesis imperfecta?”

“He took down six cops with his fists,” I say, joining them to stare at the x-rays. “He doesn’t have Brittle Bone Disease. Why would you ask that?” And then I see it, thousands of fractures across every bone in the man’s body – cracks and breaks, a shattered pelvis, hairline fissures all across the scan. “What the hell would cause this?!”

“I’ve seen bodies jettisoned from airplanes that look better than this. This just looks like he was mercilessly attacked … or was pushed out of a goddamn window … a fucking monster did this,” he says. Then he gulps and nervously glances back at me. “Pardon my French.”

They still think I’m a fragile goddamn teacup. _“ Va te faire foutre,”_ I snap back. “I want to see the skull. Find me his skull.”

He scrambles around and jams the skull up on the board. The techs don’t actually have to listen to me. I have no authority over them, I’m just an instructor. In fact, I used to work in this lab, but the tech’s quickening pace does leave me feeling a little vindicated after how careful they are around me. They’ve walked on eggshells since my incarceration.

Barely visible fractures radiate from the back of the skull like a spider’s web. “Do you see this? This looks like it’s from a blow to the head,” I say.

“Well, he fell down a flight of stairs after being shot in the shoulder, so–”

“But look at it. It looks healed.”

The techs lean in, their faces all varying degrees of confusion as they squint at the x-ray. “Um, I have the CT scan,” one suggests. “The skull’s clean on there and there’s no swelling, but I remember you saying you wanted to see it.” We move down the wall like a rugby scrum to a computer still displaying the cloudy slides of a human brain.

“I don’t care about the brain,” I say, “Let me see the axial sinus scan.”

“We were looking at that earlier. There’s no eye in there – just a creepy little cavern. It’s like it was scooped out. What do you think happened to him?”

“Maybe someone scooped it out and ate it!” laughs the new tech.

It was a joke. We all knew she was joking, but as I am apparently made of paper and any mention of cannibalism is a bucket of water, I am expected to simply fall apart when it’s mentioned. Yes, I have eaten human flesh and I have chased a cannibal. Yes, he is now a ghost in the wind and my life had been utter chaos because of it, but I’m not a delicate flower, and I’m not in mourning. I can take a goddamn joke.

As the other two men nervously shift between their feet, avoiding my eyes and chewing their lips, I feel compelled to say something to her. “That’s a good theory … if he were from Fiji. Cannibalism isn’t exactly common in Quebec … I wish I could say the same for Maryland.”

Nervous laughter erupts from the men, and the woman just stares. It’s not her fault she’s not privy to my past. I don’t exactly announce my troubles to everyone I meet, though I’m a little shocked her colleagues hadn’t filled her in. What happened to who she replaced is a bit of a tricky story to divulge around here.

In an attempt to change the subject, one man blurts, “So he was beaten to hell, pierced with a spear, doused in his own blood, and then – for some reason – dusted in red clay?”

“Sounds like he was tortured,” she says.

The only thing missing from his laundry-list of grievances are the signs of a good old-fashioned crucifixion.


	4. Masked One

* * *

“I feel like it’s been weeks,” I say with a friendly snicker. It feels like that because it has been weeks, and perhaps I shouldn’t be this friendly. He’s still a murderer after all. “I’m Special Agent Will Graham, if you don’t remember … but you seem like the type to remember names.”

He’s motionless and crouched on his knees in the middle of his cell. It’s weird to see him dressed in the standard grey jumpsuit of the institution. Hell, it’s weird that he’s been admitted here at all. He’s being charged with the murders of six men, all disarmed and killed, in one way or another, with his bare hands. It seems this is a feat that Baltimore doesn’t take lightly. His lack of speech and penetrating eyes must make him a far greater threat than I realize to land him in such a finely padded cell. And they are finely padded; I would know. My cell was a floor below his.

“You don’t have to crouch. I can have them bring you a chair. I think I still have enough authority to do that.” I look back at the four guards who slowly shake their heads. “Really? He can’t get a chair?” One of the particularly menacing watchmen nods to the stripped bed in his cell. “Yes, he can sit on his bed, I know.” This exchange is going nowhere, and frankly, it’s disconcerting to be on the side of the bars with the guards. It’s making me nervous, like at any moment I’m going to accosted by the hospital administrator and told to get back in my cell.

“Crouching is fine,” I say and open the manilla folder I brought with me. There’s hardly anything in it – just one of the tech’s reports about the spearhead and some blood work. I clutch it like it it’s my get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s the only proof I have that I belong on the outside.

“Er du fra Norge?” I begin, slowly enunciating every syllable. You have to start somewhere. His black eyes seem less than impressed. “Kan du nikkes hvis du forstår?”

Am I asking this right? I just want him to nod if he understands, but I get nothing.

Maybe I’m wrong about him being from Norway, or maybe I’m just butchering the language so badly he can’t understand me. I have a list of questions in Norwegian scrawled on the folder. The phonetic spelling starts to look strange, and I almost abandon the half-cocked idea, but I have nothing else to ask, so I forge on.

“Hvordan mistet du øyet?” I wonder.

He folds his hands across his lap. Perhaps how he lost his eye is a sensitive subject. It would be for me. The scar looks pretty gruesome.

“Hvorfor drepte du de mennene?”

No movement.

Clearly my hard work is paying off. “Why did you kill those men?” I finally blurt. “Did you feel threatened? You hadn’t done anything wrong. They only wanted to speak to you.”

I’m getting frustrated talking to myself, so I turn to the guards. “Was he physically examined before being placed in his cell?”

I get a slack-jawed line up of grimaces and shrugged shoulders as a response. Apparently no one is supposed to speak to me; I’m still a pariah within these walls.

“Someone had to have examined him. Did they open his mouth?” More useless shrugs and wrinkled foreheads. “So you have no idea if he has a weapon in his mouth right now?”

The menacing guard steps back and speaks into a walkie talkie that he pulled from thin air. I guess he’s about to find out.

I turn back to our guest. “You were found covered in your own blood. How were you hurt? Did someone hurt you and leave you in Baltimore?” He’s not even looking up at me anymore. This is pointless. “How long were you in Canada?”

That menacing guard pipes up, “It’s almost time to give him his food, Will.”

“Mr. Graham, if you don’t mind.” Apparently, they will talk to me, but I’m sensing some contempt so a little formality is in order. I clear my throat and cross my arms. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to regain my authority in here. These people have scrubbed my naked body raw. They’ve watched me shit in the corner of my cell. They’ve made disgusting and degrading remarks about my sexuality and eating habits when I was still The Ripper. You don’t recover from that.

“Does he actually eat?” I ask.

“He hasn’t yet.”

“How long has he gone without food?”

“I’ve never seen him eat, but he drinks,” he says.

“Feel free to give him his meal, but I’m going to stay here and watch him eat.”

“Whatever gets ya off … _Mr. Graham.”_ He rolls his eyes and leaves down the long corridor. I’m really starting to question this hospital’s screening process for orderlies.

When he finally returns, he carries the standard-issued beige tray I’m so familiar with. I remember as a kid thinking divided trays were so exciting. Each little compartment had the possibility to be filled with a new and delightful delicacy. Your food never touched, so everything was pure and uncompromised. But then you grow up and you’re forced into cafeterias and dining halls, eating alone in hallways or quickly over a trashcan so you can get back to class, and you think, this can’t get worse.

Oh, but it can.

Slop A was a mass of milky-yellow strips. Slop B was a brown pile of glossy chunks. It was obviously stroganoff; you’d have to be a fool not to see it. I’m glad our guest isn’t Russian.

Tin-flavored peas, half an apple, and a cup of water complete this government-issued lunch, and the tray is slid onto the floor of his cell, since the prisoner refuses to stand. But if I were him, I’m not sure I’d take it either.

The guard grabs one of his other men and they leave without a word. I assume they’re off to deliver the midday “meals” of their other “patients,” so I’m left staring at the untouched food of my friend here.

“It is edible,” I tell him. “Barely, but if your goal is to not die, it will keep you from doing so.”

He seems to ignore me and reaches forward to drink from the mug of water on his tray. He’s finally consuming something, so I unintentionally stare. I probably look like a lunatic.

He drops the cup to the floor and picks up the apple, inspecting it on all sides before taking a bite.

“Apple – good choice,” I blurt, “It’s the least offensive offering. I can get you more if you want.” I’m not sure why I offer him apples. In fact, I don’t have the authority to give him any food. There are very specific rules about that, but thankfully the two remaining guards don’t mention this.

I’m just enamored with watching him eat. A part of me is hoping that he’ll start to speak between bites, maybe mention how apples were what he missed most when he was last in prison, or how he was lost in an orchard as a child and spent two days living on just fruit. Maybe his libation of choice is Calvados, or he withers and dies without apples. I want to know his story and it’s eating away at me.

I have an intense yearning to watch this man. The way he moves, the cut of his jaw, the bizarre sinister quality to his eye reminds me of something – someone – but I can’t place it. The fluidity with which he moves is dance-like, but the finality of his actions – dropping objects to hear them crack against the floor, plunging to his knees as he kneels, craning his neck to follow his gaze rather than turning his body – they are all the stiff but graceful movements of an ex-convict or soldier. They indicate strength and power – authority. Though he has been stripped of such control, he still exudes it.

He’s not rotating the apple to bite around the core. He consumes it in its entirety, seeds and all, and does so with the confidence of a sword swallower. It makes me briefly question the apple. Is it actually the flesh of a fruit that he eats, or is it a ball of barbed wire? Everything the man does seems intense – too intense.

I’m roused out of my concentrated stare when I see his eye focus just over my shoulder.

“Will Graham – whatever you’re doing, stop it now.”

I spin around. The hospital administrator is staring down at me, his weeping lip unable to curl in disgust.

“What are you even doing here?” he asks.

“I was talking to this inmate … about a case,” I say, holding up my folder.

“I need to see your badge and you shouldn’t be in here during a meal time.”

I unclip my FBI badge and wave it in front of his face. “Is that a new rule just for me?”

“You of all people should know that’s a standard rule,” he snaps, crossing his arms.

He does have a point. It is a rule. “But … it’s me.” I cock a smile. Maybe he can bend a little. The man just started eating.

“You don’t get special treatment,” he snaps, “Inside the cell or out.”

“You’d think you guys would feel worse about that than you do …”

“I didn’t put you in that cell. You’re buddy did.”

“And you didn’t get me out either,” I say, “My buddy did.” I can feel my fists clenching as I turn back to our guest. I know the admin’s probably pissed now, and I’m fairly certain I just blew any chance I had of spending my afternoon watching a murderer eat. So be it. I’m not bitter. In fact, I’m not even resentful. My focus is back on the man in the cell. He’s my priority right now.

I nod toward the cell. “He ate the apple.”

He uncrosses his arms and peers around my shoulder. Oh, his interest is piqued now. I knew he was watching him like a hawk.

“Did he eat anything else?”

“No.”

“Can’t blame him,” he chuckles.

“If you know the food’s inedible, why don’t you do something about it?”

“Budgets, Will. And the arsonist in your old kennel says he likes the food just the way it is.”

“That so?”

“He says it’s a lot easier to ignore so he can continue his ritual fasting. Apparently, our food is a great spiritual motivator.”

“Amazing …” I scoff.

“I’m serious, Will. Get out.”

I concede because I have no choice and take one last study of the prisoner’s black eye before I feel a patronizing hand grip my shoulder. I’m pulled away from the cell, and we walk. As we round the end of the hall, I glance back to catch the untouched tray slide out of the cell.

I guess he’s fasting, too.


	5. Sleep Bringer

* * *

I’ve always had headaches. After a while you only notice how bad the pain is when you get a break from it. You suddenly feel omnipotent. Where are my keys? They’re next to the door. You know this without looking. What time am I supposed to be there? Nine thirty – no calendar needed. A painless mind is magical.

The nightmares, however, come back suddenly. They are one of the many byproducts of empathizing with the exceedingly cruel part of mankind. I go to sleep alone and vulnerable and wake up terrified of who had just joined me in bed that night. An eye observes me; hands paw at me; pain and fear pierce me all night.

But these specific dreams – the ones that break me again – begin innocently enough, as they tend to do. It’s just a few birds on a fence, nothing exciting. Having been subjected to the tech’s debate over the greatest horror films of the 1960s, I could rationally explain the dream away. But when the birds come back, time and time again – a murder to watch me, follow me, and lead me across barren lands and rocky soil – I become enamored with those silky, black birds. They spark in me a curiosity that I can’t explain. I begin expecting them. I begin looking for them, unaware that they are building rapport. We speak of battles between men and the ferocious deeds of warriors, none of which I remember by the morning. They listen to me share the most intimate details of my life – my past, my anger, and my mistrust – though I recall nothing but their cackling when I awake. They tell me stories of great feats and greater fates that are illogical to my overextended brain, but in some unexplainable way, comforting. But by the time I realize they’re picking my bones, I’m knee deep in the nightmares and unable to claw my way back to reality.

I wake up only to fall down, disoriented and sweaty. I curse the sleep bringer because he only brings me chaos in the form of unyielding confusion and extreme paranoia. I forget where I am, or wake up in the middle of the woods. It’s all happening again.

The doctors, of course, find nothing, but I’m still suspicious of many of them. I’ve been told I’m healthy before, when in reality I was on the cusp of a total collapse. I’ve lost my ability to trust anyone, myself included.

I’m already hiding my shaking hands from my boss. The phantom scratching in my chimney is back and never to be spoken of. I’m not losing my mind just yet, but I am losing time. Fragments are simply evaporating and I have no one to tell. Well I do have someone, but he’s not currently residing on this continent.

Nights are now spent binding myself to control my roaming body. I can’t trust it to not wander away, searching for answers to the questions my mind endlessly asks. Who is he? Where did he come from? What is he doing to me? Why is this happening again?

Caffeine and anxiety keep me awake when I can’t stomach another dream, and I’m left at the whim of my exhausted thoughts. They wander back, farther and farther into the past. I slog through an icy, shallow river to which I’ve never been, lost but followed by a hundred eyes I cannot see.

I sail across a misty, unrelenting water that feels as foreign and endless as the methane seas of Titan.

Then I trudge across undulating hills of marshy green, my feet finding no purchase in the muddy pits through which I lumber. I trip and I fall once again, misled by the shrieks of the birds that circle above me.

When I wake up screaming or lost outside, I huddle with my dogs in front of my fireplace, which is home to a space heater now, as I prefer my home uncharred. I curl up among the warm wet noses and soft fur, safe with my kin, and read.

The old lady who sold me the house left a set of encyclopedias from the late 80s. They were too old and heavy to box up and move with her, and too old and heavy for me to care about them taking up the entire bottom of my bookshelf. In a daze of insomnia, I drag them to my nest on the floor crack each spine as questions drift into my thoughts.

There are over seven thousand varieties of apples grown around the globe, two thousand of which we grow here in the US.

As of 1989, the population of Quebec was 6.9 million.

The term _cannibalism_ was coined by the Spanish and was derived from _caríbales,_ after the man-eating Carib tribe of the West Indies. It is also where we get the term ‘Caribbean’.

The word _viking_ originally meant a man from the Vik which is a huge bay that lies between a cape in Norway and the mouth of a river in Sweden, but that bay has since been named Skagerrak. Norway has an interesting history, and as I dive further into it, I begin to see the draw of owning a computer. Research is a slow and arduous process when you’re using a fourteen-volume encyclopedia set stacked around you like teetering cairns.

While my nights are spent journeying through ancient and unfamiliar histories, my days are spent piecing together the unknown. Bad guys rapidly multiply, victims are randomly stumbled upon, secrets are revealed and I am called back to duty, trembling hands or not.

How did this murderer get inside the house? Why did he kill the women of the family first? Why leave all the mirrors in pieces? As I traipse across a new mise-en-scène in my mind, it’s a raven that lets me inside the victim’s home, but I know there were no ravens there. It’s a spear that marks the women first for death, though no puncture is found upon the bodies. It’s a single inky-black eye staring back at me that meets my fist, scattering shards of glass around my feet. But that eye never looked inside that mirror. The nightmares are invading every aspect of my life and work, and I am powerless to stop it.

I have to ignore what I see and feel, which goes against everything I’ve done to hone my extraordinary skill. My conclusions are reaching farther and becoming harder to explain to my boss. The evidence I need isn’t there to back me up, because I’m grasping at straws in the dark with numb and broken fingers. I’m forced to rely on the trust I’ve built between myself and the FBI to keep my credibility and my job, but that is strained at best.

There are only so many times you can show up late to your own lecture before people start to notice. People always notice.

“You look tired,” they tell me with a cocked head, as though an insult should be an acceptable icebreaker. Draw attention to the struggling man. Make him feel overwhelmed. Let him know that you notice, but don’t you dare offer help. _Let him fight his own demons_ , they think, _as long as he doesn’t kill anyone, he’s fine._

I am struggling, and I admit that. I should seek help. Hindsight, they say, is crystal clear, but that’s an illusion too. All sight is an illusion. Much like my hands turn on me and my feet lead me astray, my eyes perpetually lie to me.


	6. God of Men

* * *

I was picked up that morning and taken to a fresh scene outside Annapolis along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay – a decapitated male had washed ashore. His body lay on its back in the sand, untouched by the police, though well picked-over by crabs. Where his head should have been was now a bouquet of herbs – thyme, fennel, and mugwort – along with other random greenery. It was unusual and harkened back to the handiwork of a certain Ripper, though this was clearly the work of an amateur.

I would never admit this, but I secretly yearned for the chase I once had with my old intimate, so when news of this case floated through the academy hallways, I was drawn back to the FBI, where I asked to tag along for old time’s sake.

After surveying the scene, the crew loaded up the body, and I eventually joined the techs back at the lab. My mind was elsewhere, despite the intriguing case presented to me. I knew it had nothing to do with the man who had disemboweled me and then ran. And I knew it had nothing to do with the wild man now locked in a cage by Baltimore’s finest. The decapitated man was obviously unique, but the tech’s dissection of a half dozen dead ravens found scattered around the body was far more exciting to me. I feel like I know these ravens, and I wonder if they have something to say to me.

“So what do you know about Norse mythology?” I ask the lab tech, as he peers into a bird splayed open on the metal table.

“I only know what I’ve seen of the Avengers,” he admits.

The techs are all my age, and yet somehow I, unlike them, missed the boat on being obsessed with pop culture.

“I mean the legends – the myths of the Norse gods.”

He shakes his head as he tweezes wads of white hair from the stomach of the bird.

“Unlike what your comic book friends would lead you to believe, Óðinn never adopted a child, nor was he some mild-mannered, war-hating old man. I mean, he often had a long white beard but …”

The tech looks up at me, scrunching his nose. _“Othin?_ You mean Odin?”

“No. I mean _Óðinn._ His name has no ‘d’ in it. What looks like a ‘d’ was actually an eth. It sounds like a ‘th’ – Ó- _th_ -in.”

“Why do you know this?” he asks.

“I was up late last night.”

He seems satisfied by that unspecific explanation. “So everyone’s been pronouncing it wrong?” he wonders, returning his attention to the pile of flesh nestled in the gut of this particularly carnivorous bird.

“People are like that,” I say, peering at the shredded mound of skin. “I’m called William all the time. I find it annoying.”

The tech cocks an eyebrow. “But your name is William …”

“No, it’s not. You work for the FBI, for god’s sake; check my credentials. The only place you’ll find my name written as _William Graham_ is in an inaccurate article on TattleCrime, and we all know how well she fact-checks. If you call me William, you may as well call me Grimnir. Neither are my name.”

The tech’s gloved hands fall to rest on the table as he thinks. _“Grimnir?”_

It was a Norse name I picked up on my mythological journey the night before. “Nevermind.”

He narrows his eyes, but I ignore his curiosity.

“I did not know that about your name. Very interesting,” he says.

It’s not that interesting. “Óðinn only had one eye,” I continue. “He traded it for the knowledge of how he was going to die.”

“Good trade. Did he use that knowledge to prevent his own death? I would.”

“No. But he tried. He died at Ragnarök anyway. Fate and free will are a bit of a gray area in Norse mythology.”

“Can gods die, though?”

I nod as I use a spare glove to flick teeth out of the pile of flesh in the basin. “It’s the greatest of all myths – and the most popular. Gods die through sacrifice or as a way to ascend to a higher realm.”

“So wait, he had one eye?” He mockingly gasps. “Is this about Spearman?!”

I’m not willing to share my personal research or my disconcerting dreams just yet. “It got me thinking – maybe his injuries are ritualistic somehow. Maybe he was being held captive, as a way to reenact Norse myths or honor the old gods … something like that. Óðinn was a warrior and fought a lot of people, caused a lot of unrest among men. That could account for all his broken bones.”

“I thought Óðinn was a good guy though?” Another tooth pings the metal bowl.

“He was actually a very nervous god. He was anxious about the end of the world. He killed a lot of great soldiers to build up his Einherjer. They were an army in Valhalla who trained for the final battle at Ragnarök. Óðinn was cunning, but agitated. He was well versed in magic too, but magic wasn’t what we think of as magic now … with wands and potions. Magic was closer to psychology, sociology, the study of human nature. He was great at manipulation and understanding the human mind. He could read people. He was also sort of effeminate, or at least he used a ‘womanly’ type of magic called seiðr, but I wonder if he wasn’t just adept at understanding compassion.”

The tech pulls out a wad of blonde hair and sets it on the tray. “Nervous, anxious, could read people … empathetic. Sounds like someone I know.”

His suggestion is not lost on me. “I said _compassion_ … And are you calling me effeminate?”

The tech averts his eyes, appearing to study the unchanging numbers on the empty scale hanging by his head.

“I’m not effeminate.”

“No one said you were,” he insists.

“I am _not_ effeminate.”

He holds up his bloody hands. “I didn’t say that! And it wouldn’t matter if you were. There’s nothing wrong with effeminate men.” He attempts a grin which looks more like a painfully awkward snarl. “But what you were saying about Spearman … you think he was used as a fighter? Like a gladiator-type situation? Did he gouge out his own eye then, or did someone do that to him?”

“No idea, but he was obviously cared for to a certain extent. He’s healthy and his bones have been set by a professional. But his eye – it had to have been cut out. The scars aren’t the work of a skilled doctor.”

“So he’s a Canadian Norse-themed MMA slave? That seems a wee bit farfetched, even for you, Will.”

“It’s not a complete theory, just an idea …”

He looks at me like I just grew an extra head. “Are you feeling all right, Will?”

I’ve never appreciated people asking me if I’m _all right_ or _feeling well._ It leads to questions about my habits and mental state. They’ll ask if I’m sleeping or staying up too late; if I’m drinking too much; if I’m still talking to a professional. They want to know how I’ve been coping since my old therapist assaulted me. They want to make sure the bad guys aren’t creeping back in. They want to be certain I’m not losing my ability to cope with life.

“I’m fine,” I tell him. His eyes scream at me, suddenly overly concerned for my well being, and I’m taken aback. “Why do you ask?”

His gut-covered finger points to his nose as he stares at me, and I suddenly hear it – a light tapping – and then I feel it. Blood drips from my upper lip and I press my wrist to my nose.

“I’m fine,” I repeat as my sleeve grows redder with each passing second. “I’m fine. We need answers. Just worry about the birds.”


	7. Lord of the Gallows

* * *

A guttural snort blows hot air across my cheek, and I am rousted from the sharp edge of death. Teeth gnash and grind next to me in the darkness and I can do nothing but listen. My eyes are weak, and though open, are flooded with the blackness of night. Something is feasting beside me, but I can’t move.

Is it consuming me? 

I take stock of my limbs but can feel nothing but the breath still snorting across my neck.

A cool breeze bites at my sweat-soaked skin. I’m naked. My joints have been yanked and loosened in their sockets and a sickening pressure builds in my back. As I focus on the ache, I realize my wrists and arms have been tied to a cold iron bar that spans my shoulders. It hurts, and I silently choke on the pain of the ropes and iron biting into my flesh. Then like a wave of nausea, pain laps at my belly. I’ve been stabbed in the gut.

I’m not alone here, but I am forsaken and hang from the limb of a tree.

Leaves stir again and a muzzle thumps against my spine, swaying my body with the breeze that rocks the branch from which my lifeless body swings. I don’t know where I am, but it is a place of immeasurable importance. It is a tree that dwarfs the world and I am a speck among its limbs.

Time is irrelevant here, but my mortal mind can’t help but try to measure it. Have I hung for minutes, hours, days? Counting seconds gives me thousands of opportunities to stay grounded, despite my feet hovering miles above the soil. When will I awake from this nightmare – safe within a pile of fur and books?

About seven hundred thousand seconds later, the sun floods the canopy and my eyes can finally study the creatures that gorge on the boughs at my sides. Three stags are perched among the branches in view. A fourth still nuzzles at my back. None of these creatures are _my_ stag, though they bare a striking resemblance. My stag is gone. He was chased from my life like a bad dog.

The three ignore me as I swing. They glide effortlessly from branch to branch, stripping new leaves as they amble. Though my heart doesn’t beat, it seems to catch in my throat as they jump, blindly hurtling their bodies between limbs. They bound with an ease that terrifies, because below us, peeking from beyond the foliage, lies a land so far away that if a hoof were to slip from its perch, it would be cracked and gray by the time it next harrowed the earth.

The Dead One ruts against my bloody back again, coating its antlers in what drips from fresh gouges. As my nerves tingle back to life, he cranes his neck and snorts mist against my chest. He is a pitch-black beast with a rack that could carry a hundred dead men home from battle. He is a grave creature, feared by all, but a few, though he is the only bearer of peace. 

As though we were resting in a golden field and not among thin, slimy branches, he saunters through the leafage without a care to find more interesting adornments in his great tree. He leaves me at the whim of the four black and two blue eyes that remain, watching me as though I could escape my arboreal gallows.

What is this colossus from which I hang? I studied plant taxonomy once when I began my higher education a lifetime ago. I remember the phrase “mad horse,” which seems eerily appropriate for my current predicament. It was a mnemonic device for identifying trees with a specific branching structure – maple, ash, dogwood, and horse-chestnut. From what I can see of the compound leaves being pulverized by the stags circling me – I’m hanging from an ash tree – an ash tree of enormous proportions.

The Sleeping One approaches me, his thick coat tinged green with moss and algae and beading with dew. My parched mouth suddenly begs to lap at his soaked fur. He stretches his neck just beyond my face to chew the sprigs around my taut ropes. Young leaves drop to my naked shoulder from the brute’s mouth, but he huffs against my neck, blowing them from my potential grasp, as though my bound hands are a threat. I’m to be offered no food or water here – neither bread and beer nor the meager pittance of water-rich shoots from this very tree.

More creatures lurk in the foliage – eagles shriek above me, a rat chatters at my back, and there is no doubt a host of other beasts and serpents lying far below my feet at the roots of this gargantuan structure.

Thousands of seconds tick by before the blue-eyed, piebald stag wanders to me. He is Thriving Slumber, and he’s been watching me study the rustling leaves and the sure feet of his kin. He is the only stag that speaks to me, but he does so soundlessly, his hypnotic gaze being the only thread through which we interact.

He tells me things – cryptic, non-specific things. He shares the riddles of the omnipotent, and I’m supposed to be impressed.

But I’m bound – I’m starving – I’m thirsty, and I bleed from a gash across my belly. A speartip is broken off in the wound and it burns with every quiver of my body. I am here against my will and I’ve done nothing wrong. Why am I’m being punished like a murderer, hanging in the tortured forest, waiting for the claws of the harpies?

I’m not, apparently. I’m being blessed with an unknowable knowledge. But what knowledge? I asked for no knowledge.

“ You forget,” he tells me.

I’ve forgotten and so I must be reminded. I am a sacrifice to the blood that I so callously spill.

I’ve intentionally spilled no blood, so I take issue with this. But my blood has been spilled by others. I cannot be held responsible for my own gutting. That was the doing of a cruel and manipulative man.

 _“But you are culpable,”_ says the stag. I let him work his magic on me. I let him in, and he made me do his bidding. I am responsible for my own gutting after all.

_“The man tricks and you let it happen.”_

No one tricked me.

_“The man is more powerful than you, but not forever. Do you want to see how it ends?”_

How what ends?

It begins as a low rumble. Branches are snapping and crashing below me. Icy water rises like a tempest – a churning tide, overtaking the tree. White froth retches from below, filling the air with salt. It rises to my knee – my hip – my waist – my chest – I’m being consumed. It overwhelms my body, filling my lungs and then, as quickly as the flood has risen, it halts and the water plummets just below my feet.

All is calm except my trembling chest, which heaves out mouthfuls of saltwater. The pool is now still, inky and endless – an onyx mirror. My head rolls forward and I finally see my naked hanging flesh.

A trail of glistening black drips down my scarred belly. My soaked hair laps at my temples like black fire. My eyes are dark and lifeless, my skin like blue-tinged snow.

If my life’s not ending now, how does it? I feel nothing. I am nothing.

_“Did you see it? You can’t breathe now and you won’t breathe then. Are you cold yet, boy? Did the man gnaw at you? Did you feel the teeth? Did the tongue taste you at the end?”_

I am cold, and my dripping skin ripples the glass.

I can see it.

I see the end, but I see it with both my eyes. And I don’t just see it, I feel it – a jaw at my neck as I fall from grace.

Waves crash against the tree. Branches are sucked into eddies that violently whirl beyond my tranquil pool, and my eyes are lost, diving deeper into the black waters, the world melting away as I sway.

Then I begin to thrive, my knowledge growing with every thunderous clap of the tidal force ripping at the ash behind me. I thrive with the knowledge bestowed upon me.

The first of what I learn is sympathy, to lessen ills and comfort those that suffer around me. The second, empathy, to interpret and appreciate afflictions of the mind and body. The third, mitigation, to blunt the forces brought against me. The fourth, cunning, to escape the wrath of captors who seek me. The fifth, intuition, to see disaster before it strikes me. The sixth, justice, to set right malicious acts brought against me. The seventh, protection, to shelter my kith and kin. The eighth, relief, to bring comfort to impassioned minds. The ninth, perception, to avoid the storms of life. The tenth, misdirection, to ward off my own pain and suffering. The eleventh, strength, to bring vigor to kindred spirits. The twelfth, insight, into those who have no voice to speak. The thirteenth, guardianship over the innocent. The fourteenth, knowledge of my lineage and history. The fifteenth, wisdom in all its many forms. The sixteenth, seduction, to persuade company when I’m lonely. The seventeenth, charm, to delight my young companions. And the eighteenth, mystery when all else fails.

These invocations reverberate in my mind. I’ve heard them before, centuries – no, millennia – ago, but they weren’t my ears they fell upon. I hung then for this knowledge like I hang now from this tree to remember. I hung, and I hang, to summon magic.

_“Are you thirsty?”_

I look up from the water to the blue-eyed stag who still waits for me.

“No,” I say, my voice booming from my chest.

_“You don’t drink?”_

No, I don’t drink, I insist. I’m satiated, despite the week of thirst and starvation. I feast on memories now.

_“Did you see what you needed to see?”_

I don’t know. And if I did, what happens now? My mind deadens to all voices as the blue-eyed stag huffs and turns away to descend into the leaves at the edge of the water. In the distance a low rumble ripples through the sky.

A storm awakens across the heavens as I am joined by Thundering in the Ear, who lumbers across the branch on which I hang, sure-footed though graceless. Twigs snap as he descends upon me, crashing through the leaves to finally perch at my side. He is the smallest of the four stags. His rusty coat is unblemished and sleek, but his antlers are covered in marred, bloody velvet – constantly shedding, always changing.

His breath is heavy and he growls from his gut as he nears. He suddenly throws his head and catches a tine of his rack on my rope, rattling my listless bones. I can feel my fingers tingle and my icy feet awaken as they skim the still pool. My arms quiver as they finally fall from the bar and lifelessly paw at my burning throat. I can’t breathe … I’m dying now.

Fingers pry at the tightening rope, digging nails into flesh. They aren’t my fingers, but it is my flesh. I can’t breathe.

My tongue grows thick and fills my mouth. My eyes, hot and bulging, roll back in my head. I hear my name called, but I can’t call back.

The Dead One returns to the limb just within my view, and I’m left wondering: if this is the end, why am I not drowning? That’s what he showed me. I’m supposed to drown when I die. And then, like magic, my rope is cut, and I fall.


	8. Father of the Slain

* * *

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” he says.

No shit.

It’s been a rough couple of days, and I’m just now finding myself back at the lab. It’s after hours, and I’ve enlisted the help of this good tech in figuring out some much-needed answers. He’s less than enthusiastic after what happened last week.

“Will, I’m serious, I could lose my job. You aren’t supposed to be here.”

Everyone is making a huge deal out of nothing. “I only want to see what you found after you ran his clothes.”

His eyes burn into me, ignoring my words and studying my unfortunately bloodshot eyes. I look like I’ve been up all night because I have. I’m a little afraid to fall asleep, if I’m being honest.

“I need to put to rest a couple demons and then I’ll go lie down in my car, okay? I’ll take a nap and be a whole new person.”

“You can’t just sleep off clinical depression, Will, you need to relax, get away from this hellhole, and go talk to someone.”

“I’m talking to you! Right now!”

“I mean a professional, Will!”

“Well, my track record’s not all that great with professionals, is it?! Just tell me what you found on his clothes, and I’ll leave.”

I shouldn’t yell at the techs. I’m actually mad at my boss because he’s livid with me, but that’s nothing new. When he’s mad at me, I often bury myself in my teaching, but I’ve been placed, against my will and at the recommendation of my psychiatrist, on medical leave. Apparently, she’s decided that I’m suicidal now. But shouldn’t you be nice to the suicidal? Shouldn’t you bend over backward to help them? After all, they’re suicidal! Shouldn’t you allow them five damn minutes with a couple case reports if that’s what they need to sleep? They’re all hypocrites. I have a thousand questions, each more complicated than the last, and I need some concrete answers.

This whole suicide business … it was ridiculous. I hadn’t tried to kill myself; it was a misunderstanding. Yes, it looked bad – I was found hanging from a tree on my property – but I was barely off the ground. Who knows how long I’d been there? I was still breathing when they found me. And no, I didn’t recall how I ended up in the tree, but that was irrelevant. I would have woken up eventually, so all my “rescuer” did was spoil a riveting dream – one I actually remembered upon waking up.

It had been a cryptic dream, true, but I felt somehow rejuvenated by what I had seen and felt. There are parts of my life – parts of me – that I don’t talk about anymore. I don’t want to explore this darker half of me. It’s terrifying for myself and everyone around me, so I banish it; I lock it up so I don’t have to deal with it.

It’s not a healthy way to live; I know that. We all know that. But sometimes we have to sacrifice rational thinking just to survive. The dream had given me hope. It had relieved the pressure of uncertainty. I will see him again, I can sense it now. My suffering will end one day, and I am confident that my end will be as beautiful as my journey will be to get there.

For now, however, I have to deal with my present predicament. I was found by my neighbor, hanging in a tree by a bed sheet at nine o’clock at night. He cut me down and I fell … right off the case.

“Are you going to tell me what you found or not?” I argue to the tech. “Please don’t tell me I drove all the way down here for no reason.”

He sighs. I think he’s cracking. “We did find a couple hairs,” he finally admits.

“Hairs? That’s good! Follicle still attached?”

The tech nods.

“DNA matches?”

He shakes his head.

“I want to know everything anyway.”

* * *

I’m horrified by the lackadaisical attitude of the asylum’s administration. A single bottle of Wild Turkey got me inside in the middle of the night. He didn't even hold out for something top shelf.

I stay close to the orderly until he leaves me at the cell, flipping on the lights as I approach the bars. The cold, blue glow flickers over us, and I’m shocked to see our guest laying on his back in the bed. I guess I thought he’d still be kneeling on the concrete floor, a statue or a sentinel waiting for me to return.

His head rests on his hands, and thankfully he’s not asleep. His living conditions are already abysmal. The last thing he needs is a fool like me rousting him awake to talk about hair.

I clear my throat and he cranes his neck to look at me.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” I say, but that’s somewhat obvious given the hour. He sits up in bed and stares at me, his face soft and tired. He actually looks content and somewhat pleased to see me, though I’m probably overly optimistic. “Can we talk?”

He doesn’t object, so I sit on the floor by the gate to his cell. It feels comfortable like I’m sitting across from an old friend, even though, logically, I know this is absurd. He’s not a friend. He’s a violent murderer, and I need to keep reminding myself of that, but I have news to share and he’s the only person it pertains to.

“So do you know what DNA is?” I ask him, but he only rubs his gruff chin in response. “It’s comprised of a genetic code that’s unique to each of us. It’s found anywhere there are living cells, so skin, blood, and bone.” He stands, cracking his neck, and begins to pace in his cell – a caged bull, prodded awake. I glance up at his towering form as I continue, “I won’t bore you with the science, but I wanted to tell you that we found hair on your clothing. It’s long and blond, and the DNA tells us that it belongs to a prepubescent boy – a young boy – a child.”

He stops and turns to me, so I continue, hoping I’ve caught his attention, “He’s not your son – we can tell that – and some people will jump to outrageous and perverted conclusions because of that. I am not one of those people. I’m choosing to stay objective. If you are traveling with a boy, it is in your, and his best interest to say something now while there is still time to find him.”

He approaches the bars and falls to his knees, now kneeling across from me. He’s invested now. Maybe this is the straw that will break his silence.

“If you were protecting the boy when the police came, it is understandable that you felt threatened, especially if you don’t speak fluent English or if you truly don’t speak at all. I’m not justifying your actions, but I will admit that I understand them.”

He remains silent, though his hand raises, and he flicks the bars between us like he’s playing a set of ominous chimes.

“I understand why you attacked; because that paternal drive to protect children is powerful – even children that aren’t our own blood. When we fail to protect them, it is devastating, so please, tell me where I can find him.”

I can feel my pupils dilate because he’s shaking his head in response.

My heart races, and I’m suddenly dripping with a cold sweat. I’m not crazy. He understands me. He is listening, and I am right. He is communicating with me, though it is difficult to discern. I’m not crazy and someone is listening to me.

“I can find your boy,” I tell him. “But I need to know where to start.”

He continues to shake his head, and then his hand flicks the air to dismiss my request. The boy is apparently neither his nor my concern any longer. But this is atrocious. There is a boy and he is my concern. He is alone out there and we have to find him.

“Is he already gone?” I say, grasping at the prospect that he’s wandered back to a warm and loving home, though I know this is only a fairy tale. “Do you know if he’s safe?”

His chin falls to his chest, and I’m left fighting between reason and hope. Was that a nod? Was it an affirmation that the boy is safe, or a defeated confirmation of his death?

“Is he dead?” I wonder, and my breath rushes from my chest. He doesn’t respond, but I am compelled to speak for both of us. “It hurts,” I say. “It is an aching hurt to be the cause of a child’s death. It never goes away. There was a girl in my life once. She was there, and then she wasn’t.”

I have to pause because these are words that have not crossed my tongue in a year, but they are just as bitter as they ever were. “I blamed myself, and so did everyone else. And then, like magic, she was given back to me. I was overjoyed, beyond thrilled to see her beautiful face looking back at me. And then spite reared its merciless head. Spite took her from me again.

“You don’t get over that type of betrayal. It just sits in your chest for eternity. The end of the world won’t even dissolve that pain. It will live on, beyond your death. It will turn into something else – a disease that strikes a mother, a plague that decimates a town. That pain is reborn as a scourge upon the land. You never get over the loss of a child, you just learn how to live with the burden that crushes you.”

These words he understands. I can see it in the black eye staring back at me, so I continue my long-winded divulgement, “What I have learned is that the only way to lighten that load is to imagine your child at peace. Whatever religion you attest to, if you can imagine their death as not the end, but the beginning of something, you can stop withering and indeed survive.”

I chew my tongue, still dry and acrid in my mouth. I’m not even sure I believe my own words. I’m still withering, myself.

A voice suddenly booms from behind me, “Time's up, Wild Turkey. Let’s go.” It’s jarring and my mind isn’t ready, but I stand. I am not crazy, and I know it now.

“I tried to kill myself.” I don’t know why I say it, I just want our guest to know. “I hung for nine days.”

He cocks his head as the guard grabs my sleeve, and I’m dragged down the darkened hallway of the institution.


	9. Hel Binder

* * *

The entrance is a black and ominous cave because it’s always a black and ominous cave.

My mind is struggling with what is about to happen, fighting me with rational reasons not to willingly enter such a foreboding place. My chest, however, feels strongly otherwise. It flutters in anticipation of who lies just beyond the grim threshold of this world.

Stones crunch under my footfall, and I hear a patting echoing from inside the cave. I stop to listen. Something is galloping on light, agile feet. Then a growl rumbles through the air. A huge dog, black and blood-covered, rips from the cave and lunges. I fall back, scrambling away, but he’s on me, tearing at my clothes, and it all goes black.

* * *

I awake to a tongue lapping at my bloody face. The dog whimpers and noses me in the belly until I sit up, dazed by my unexpected mauling. Bright-yellow eyes study me before his tongue cleans my dirty hands. My guess is that this is the same dog that attacked me. I must have spooked him.

A broken chain dangles from his neck, and I’m surprised to find it wound tightly around my right hand. He tugs on it until I stand, then he drags me towards the cave.

My mind has lost its battle with itself. I will not fight this beast again. To avoid another mauling I will follow him to the ends of the earth, or in this case, into the gaping maw of the otherworld.

As we cross the threshold, the ground falls away and I skid down gravel. I catch myself on the dog as we tumble into the vast pit below us. We hit the ground with a splash, drenching us both in icy water. It’s shocking, and I clamber to my knees in the shallow pool, heaving to refill my compressed lungs.

When my breaths grow calm and steady, I fumble to my feet, and with the chain still fastened to my hand, my hound lugs me from the water and we begin our journey underground.

The blackness is thick and cold, but as we trudge over uneven terrain, it envelops us and fades to a rich velvet. As suddenly as we had tumbled over the cliff, the blackness opens to a vast sea of starlit sky. A blanket of twilight hovers over us and I stumble, unable to tear my gaze from the speckled heavens that float over us despite our descent into the earth. It is magnificent.

By the time I realize we are ambling over grassy hills, my eyes have dropped from the sky and have now adjusted to this realm. It is perpetually dusk here, a golden glow illuminating the dark green lands. My shepherd leads me down a well-worn path between piles of smooth rocks, precariously stacked in tall towers. There are people here, and they wipe dirt from the rocks and pull weeds from the stone markers that pepper the landscape.

One such body crosses over the trail, clutching a bouquet of bright blue flowers to his chest. He turns to us and smiles a ghostly, lifeless grin. There’s something twisted about his abdomen as his shirt stretches and puckers over the lumpy bulges across his body.

The dog growls and the hair stands on the back of my neck. The aggressive gesture from my guide, however, neither worries nor slows the man. He approaches me and holds out the flowers.

I hesitate, and in those few seconds, he takes my hand and opens it, laying the stems across my palm.

“For your heart,” he says, and he limps down the path that winds behind us.

The dog saunters on, and I take a step before turning back to the man.

“Thank you,” I say, and he nods, though he faces away from me. I don’t know what to do with them, but they are so blue, so unique in this darkened place, that I don’t have the heart to cast them aside.

I catch up to the hound who weaves between stone markers. The chain seems to grow and shorten as needed, though when a sickly hare bolts across our path, he dives for it and is stopped short, the lead gagging him before he can make the kill.

He snarls at me, baring his teeth as his apparent dinner hops away. I don’t intend to starve him, and I think he knows this. He quickly loses interest and we continue on our journey through the burial mounds that flank the path.

Before long, a familiar voice speaks and I glance around for the voice. “Do you come with questions?” she says.

I peer over at a dark-haired woman kneeling near the pile of rocks.

“Excuse me?” I ask, though I heard her just fine.

“Do you seek answers?” she calls to me.

I don’t know what I seek, so I keep my response short, lest I seem a fool. “I seek questions, I think, but I’ll gladly take answers. I’m curious about this place.”

She stands and walks to me, and I see her smiling face.

“You know what they say about curiosity,” she says, snickering to herself. “And satisfaction does not bring you back. I learned that the hard way.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “There was nothing I could do.”

“I know, Will,” she says. Her tender smile sends warmth through my heavy chest. “I was too curious about him. Don’t make my mistake.”

I nod and am suddenly tugged by the tightening chain of my guide. I wave with my bouquet and she laughs at me as I’m wrenched down the path by my impatient companion.

I think I still miss her. The lab’s not the same without her. She’d always been nice to me.

This path seems long and difficult, but it is a pleasant walk despite the crumbling conditions surrounding us. Far off in the distance are undulating hills covered in forest. They are on fire with the gold and red leaves of a woodland perpetually suspended in Autumn.

Over a small grassy hill, I am suddenly awestruck by a glorious castle that erupts from an island within a small, dark lake. A flat, stone bridge connects our path with the wooden door of this palace. My guide quickens his pace, but I let him run ahead, the chain doubling in length as he gallops away. I need to give my aching hand a break. It’s now bloody, the skin rubbed raw and torn away.

When I make it to the great stone wall of this fortress, she is waiting for me.

She’s still young with long, brown hair, and dressed in a darkened robe. Half of her face is shrouded, obscured in the shadow of her castle until she steps from the darkness and the twilight bathes her.

To see her in the light brings me transcendental joy. I want to touch her, hold her, and stroke her pale, white cheek. She is alive, though she is dead. She is a corpse, though in my eyes, awake and breathing as she walks.

I want to fall to her feet and beg forgiveness, but I’m afraid if I look away, I’ll never see her again. She smiles sweetly and tousles the scruff of my hound. With a fluid wave, she invites me to walk with her, and so I do.

Around the walls, a massive orchard stretches in front of us. It bursts with the fruit of a hundred thousand apple trees. She finds a golden tree and we sit beneath it, the wolf’s chain wrapping itself around the trunk as we relax in the grass.

She grabs an apple from the ground, and with a quick twist, snaps the fruit down the center. She offers me half, but I wonder, why half? There are countless trees bearing countless fruit, and I have walked so far.

“I have more bodies to care for than leaves on these trees, let alone the apples,” she says to me, “We all have to share this fruit.”

If half an apple is a feast for a body which neither breathes nor grows, it’s a feast for me as well. I nod my thanks as I accept her offering.

“How are you?” she asks, and her voice is soft but worried.

I’m exhausted. I’m a mess. I’m losing my mind. “I’m fine,” I say, and she shakes her head. She knows I lie, but is gracious enough to ignore it.

Her slender fingers absentmindedly stroke her throat as she wonders, “Should I ask about him?”

“If he’s not here, you know more about him than I do,” I say, and it’s true. Her killer is nothing more than an apparition to me now. The only evidence I have that he ever even existed is a scar on my gut and a soreness in my chest.

“Why did you come to visit me?” she asks.

“I wanted to see you,” I admit, and she smiles. “I stay awake all night worrying. I don’t even know what I’m worried about anymore. It just feels strange when I don’t worry, so I find a way to be troubled.”

“You shouldn’t worry, Will. You don’t get anything from it. In the morning you get up exhausted and your problems are still unsolved.”

This is nothing that my therapist hasn’t said a hundred times. Coming from this young girl, however, I’m not nearly as annoyed hearing it. “I know, but I’m a creature of habit. Worry is familiar – almost comforting.”

She bites her lip before asking, “Do you think you made the wrong choice? Should we have all left together?”

“It was too late anyway. I had to make a logical decision, and I couldn’t bear the thought of what the other choice would mean.”

“And how’s your choice working out for you now?” she says, grinning at my somber face.

I have to scoff at the soft smile that fills her pallid cheeks. “My heart hurts,” I say. And then I remember the bouquet still in my hand. “These are for you, I think.”

She takes them and brings them to her face.

“Belladonna. As much as I try, these will not restart my heart, Will. It’s a nice thought, though.”

There is a long pause, and I’m still unsettled by being in this place, which I’m growing to acknowledge is no place at all.

“What am I supposed to do now? My life is still in shambles, and I’m lost.”

“Journeys are great for those who are lost. Or maybe try making new friends?”

“I’m still recovering from my last friend.”

She smiled and nods again. “Then maybe you should put him to rest.”


	10. God of Prisoners

* * *

She stops me in the lobby. Someone called ahead of me, that bastard.

“Will, you’re off this case.” She snaps and points at the door I’d just walked through.

I hadn’t even gotten through the metal detectors and I am already being scolded by my psychiatrist. The fucking hospital admin has to poke his damn nose where it doesn’t belong. Why did he even call her? She has nothing to do with any of this.

“No, I’m not off the case,” I claim, removing my belt.

“Put it back on, and you need to leave right now.” Apparently, she’s ordering me around now.

“I just need to speak to him,” I say, still attempting to enter the building. I specifically wore nothing metal just to avoid being slowed.

“He doesn’t speak, Will. And you have been stripped of your badge. Go back home and get some rest.”

“He does speak, you just aren’t listening to him, and I’m fine. I just need five minutes.”

“Goddamn it, Will, get out of here!"

She’s waving over guards. Three are flanking me. She is serious this time, as is my boss. They both have the entire FBI at their back, so it’s not really a fair fight. And now because of ridiculous government policy and my country’s disgust over mental illness, I won’t get the answers I need.

I’m escorted outside _The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane._ It’s an imposing fortress with a catchy name and lots of barred windows on the gritty, white stone. It almost looks like you’d have a nice view if they stashed you near the top, but you’d be mistaken. The cells have no windows, nor do the corridors. Fake windows adorn this asylum. You have to pretty it up for all the people who’ll never grace its halls.

There are a fair number of trees surrounding the building, so I could just scale the wall. I know roughly where his cell is, but I feel like that behavior might just land me back inside, and breaking into _this_ hospital is not something I’m looking to do.

I haven’t been this arrested – this _invested_ – in a case since The Ripper. It’s rekindling a dying fire in my belly, and I’m not about to let it go out. It’s ridiculous that they pulled me from the case. I was the only one making any progress. Of course, according to them, it wasn’t _progress._ It was all hearsay and conjecture and a whole lot of crazy to them. But you can’t demand someone’s intuition and then dismiss it because you don’t like what they have to say. If I say the man is hiding something, he probably is. If I say I need to speak with him alone, I should be allowed to do so. If I say he’s here in Baltimore for a reason, I will find that reason.

I know we have a connection. I felt it the last time we spoke. He shook his head and answered a question. It was only a wave of his hand, but I felt more in tune with him in those fleeting moments than I had at any previous encounter. I sat with him and we felt pain together. At least I felt the pain.

My dream the night before wasn’t particularly unexpected after our brief conversation. The more I focus on how I lost her, the more vivid she becomes in my mind. I went to bed that night damn near excited to fall asleep, because I knew what was coming. Before my head hit the pillow, she was already overflowing my thoughts.

At the end of our visit, she gave me sound advice. I do need to move on. But I’m not sure what bothers me more: not knowing where her killer is, or knowing that even if I did, I can’t see him.

What I find most troubling is that there are only two outcomes to laying my former friend to rest: he will have to be captured, or he will have to be dead. In a cage or in the ground are the only scenarios that will bring me relief. His offer of an alternative outcome expired when I betrayed him, and I paid for my betrayal with her life. 

My guest here at the prison paid a price, too. I could see it in his eye. He lost a cherished child to something akin to spite. We share that experience, and it has changed us both in unimaginable ways. There is more than just this connection, though – we are kindred spirits. We have both killed men, sought knowledge, and seen our future. We are both now at the mercy of time – awaiting the sword, the teeth, or the fall to kill us.

My hallucinations, my dreams, my unquestioned obsessions … it’s all happening again, only this time I don’t have a medical diagnosis to blame. This is all me, and in a way, that is far more terrifying. I’ve never liked feeling out of control of my own body, and yet I’m losing it all again.

In addition to losing myself, I’m losing the trust of my colleagues. They had lost their confidence in me a year ago, and though I was cleared, I’d never get it back.

 _Strike it from the record. The jury will ignore that last statement_ … if only that’s how human brains actually worked.

At this point, I am more interested in the truth than following the unjust orders of my boss and doctor to stay away. My dreams are getting more wild and bizarre, and I need answers. I want justice for the man in the cage, but justice will only come when I know for certain who he is and what he needs me to know.

The FBI wants me temporarily gone – bound and gagged by court order if need be. They want my suicidal smear off the good name of their organization. I’m supposed to trust their judgment and get some rest, so that when I return, I’ll be “refreshed” and ready to do their bidding. They have no concern for me as a person. They just want my name to stop popping up every time something nefarious happens.

 _Will Graham_ killed The Shrike.

 _Will Graham_ set a journalist on fire.

 _Will Graham_ was found “criminally insane.”

 _Will Graham_ is sexually attracted to cannibals.

 _Will Graham_ is crazy, and he’s now defending a nameless cop-killer.

They want to shut me up because the more they use me, the less credible they become, despite my stellar track record – cannibals aside. But I’m not really a fan of being used, and frankly, I’m tired of playing their games.


	11. Foe of the Wolf

* * *

It’s a pretty little island, if not bleak. I think that every time I come here.

I stand at the edge of the shore and look out over the endless sea, flat and black like frozen pitch. It’s not a normal sea with rolling tides and an abundance of life. There is no movement here, no brisk wind to crest a wave. The great wings that drive the gales are so far away that nothing can disturb this island or its occupant. We have come in the night when the beast still dreams, and I can’t help but feel the tug of guilt on my heart.

This place reeks of dying vegetation, but the trees are tall and fearless, dangling roots into the mire as their limbs stretch high into the heavens. These trees are different, though. They flake – not unlike the papery bark of a birch – but they’re not white. They’re sooty black and they rust in the mist.

I drop to my knees and take the time to stack a simple cairn. The stones tumble, cracking against the craggy shore as they clatter into the still water. I try again, and again, and again, teetering rocks until they settle and I look upon the tower. I can find my way back now when my honor and obligations will inevitably lead me astray.

I dip my muddy hand into the water and find it obscured only inches down by the thick tea of peat. It’s what hides my hand and makes this water black. It’s a terrible sea for fishing. Fish can’t breathe in this slop, so they’re forced to swim to cleaner shores. It’s a shame, really.

My perch at the water’s edge is peaceful despite our unjust visit. It will only end badly for him and myself, but there is nothing I can do. They come hauling fetters. I come hauling a burdened conscience.

I have a brood who greets me each morning and warms me each night, and I love them, but the hound we seek is of the divine. He is both great and ferocious. He is the grandeur of a flooding torrential rain, a leveling earthquake, and a scorching fire. He is magnificent, but he will do terrible things.

He is the very essence of nature, chaos incarnate, and he grows more and more vast with every feeding. I tell others of his gargantuan appetite, and he is feared for it. If not bound, he will eat the world.

So they come to this island bearing chains, and we seek him. I lead them through mounds of pink heather to his cave, deep inside the black forest. His fur is sleek and beautiful and he is suspicious of such a party at his doorstep. He should be worried, but he is still my friend and he trusts me.

“It’s a game,” says one of the men. He holds up a rope. “Do you have strength and cunning, dog? We don’t believe you do.”

My boy is sly and laughs. Of course he has these things. He allows the leathers to be wrapped around his feet and muzzle and struggles against his restraint. It’s a show for the men, and they laugh.

“He has no strength!” they bellow. “He’s but a pup!”

The leathers snap and fly, raining hide upon his captors, and he growls out a triumphant snarl. He cannot be bound by bits of animal flesh. He knows this. I know this, but I can’t help but feel a little proud.

“But that was just skin!” they holler. “The cur eats skin! But he doesn’t eat chain!”

They’re right. He doesn’t eat chain. He has no reason to, since I visit him weekly bearing livestock to feed his endless appetite.

“Might he test his strength with the chain?” they yell.

His laughing jaws open to reveal the magnitude of their girth. He will snap those chains in the faces of these arrogant men.

So they bind him again, and I watch. His feet are crushed together, his throat choking as they shackle him. They step back to view their handiwork and he whimpers under the mighty weight of his irons. He writhes on the ground, thrashing his great haunches, and I begin to worry. This chain won't stop him. But he hasn’t eaten today. He is weakened by my hand, and I’m at fault. I’m failing him.

No, he’s not weakened, and the iron flexes and creaks until it snaps, flinging shrapnel into the group who now grumble to themselves, huddling in a mass of whispers.

They call me to them, and I join the group as they deliberate and argue amongst themselves.

“What do we do?” they wonder. “We have nothing with which to bind him, but we’ve been ordered to do so.”

I don’t want to betray my friend. He’s more than that to me – he’s my ally, my confidant, my brother now. I can’t speak against him, and yet I do.

“Send for a tie made of magic.”

They do, and when we receive it, it is a simple but extraordinary red ribbon.

They present it to my boy and they laugh. “Just a ribbon,” they claim, “can you break it?”

He balks, but he is cunning. He knows there is more to it than silk, and he’s right. He shakes his head, refusing the task. If he’s bound by magic he will never break free, and he has no trust in these men.

But he trusts me, and I know this, so I offer my hand as a sacrifice. He may feel it between his teeth as they bind him, and if he cannot break the tie and we do not release him, he may take my hand.

He agrees and they tie him.

They bind him with ease and grace, padding across the stones like cats, silent beneath the great wolf’s belly. He waits as they do this, still confident and safe. I feel his certainty and I tighten my fist, which grows soaked and pungent in his mouth. They weave the strip among his feet like long tendrils of hair, braiding his legs into a single, solid mass. They tighten it, and he cries out in pain, the ribbon rooting into flesh and bone. His teeth bite into my hand, but I can’t wince. He is my boy and he trusts me. I know this, and my mouth grows dry as I focus on this unconscionable betrayal. The ribbon tightens across his withers like the sinews of a bear, and they lash it again to his feet. They heave, and his chest collapses, binding his breath to that of an insignificant minnow.

He whimpers and stares into my black eyes. I can do nothing but peer back, my face slack and ashamed. Then a fire erupts from within him and he knows he has no strength to break free of these cursed constraints. He is defeated, and he is vengeful, and in his boundless rage, he takes the hand that feeds him.


	12. Ruler of Treachery

* * *

“Do you want to talk about your hand?” she asks me from her loud, paisley-printed chair. She’s staring uneasily at my bandaged hand and tapping the barely-touched notebook splayed across her lap. I’m surprised the notebook isn’t filled by now.

I can’t help but mimic her incessant tapping, but every time I flex my knuckles I can feel the scabs around my wrist tighten and burn.

“No, I don’t really want to talk about my hand.”

“I think we should,” she presses.

“It was an accident.”

“You can’t keep saying that, Will. You almost crushed your own hand. Do you not see how serious this is becoming? Are you taking something that might cause hallucinations?”

“No!” Why the hell would she think that? “I’m not on drugs. I’m under stress.”

“The normal stresses of a job and a family don’t typically cause people to hang themselves from trees or attempt to remove their own appendages, Will. I’m concerned with what’s happening to you.”

“So my coping mechanisms offend you now? You’re supposed to be helping me.”

“I’m trying to help you, Will, but frankly, you don’t seem to want to be helped. And you have been very blazé about all of this. It’s troubling.”

“ I’m not troubled because there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“A suicide attempt and self-mutilation are glaring symptoms that something is wrong, Will. You are not coping well. I know it was risky taking you on as a patient after what happened, but your behavior is beginning to indicate a deep-seated problem and I think you need to see another doctor – a neurologist.”

“I’ve seen neurologists. And I think it’s interesting that after all these years, I get yanked from my lecture hall and probed and prodded by you people, and all the sudden I’m crazy now? When I started field work, I was fine. You people are doing this to me! All of you!”

She sighs and rubs her face in exasperation. She thinks _she’s_ tired of this?

“Will, I understand why you’re upset. After what happened between you and I and then after he attacked you –“

“Stop.” How dare she. “You don’t get to talk to me about him. You know my rules, and this hand thing is not a reason to dredge it all up.”

“I actually think it’s long overdue that we start talking about him. It’s been almost a year, and you still haven’t decompressed. You are crumbling, Will, and you need to understand that. I have sought help and I’m healing. You are still completely lost. You see him in other cases and you start obsessing again.”

“I am not obsessing over him.”

“He took something from you and then escaped, Will. It’s understandable that you feel betrayed. You trusted him–"

“I never trusted him.”

“I think you did.”

“You trusted him – you slept with him. The FBI trusted him – _they_ slept with him. You all trusted him so goddamn much that you let him get away with murder and frame me for it in the process! I never trusted him!”

“And I think you did, Will," she repeats.

She doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.

“You were his patient. That required a certain degree of trust. You two became friendly. It’s all right to admit that. I had a relationship with him, Will, and I’m coming to terms with that. You had a relationship with him too–"

“It wasn’t a relationship.”

“You were his patient. He was your doctor. That’s still a relationship.”

I can’t talk to this woman. She’s making shit up now.

She huffs out another indignant sigh and continues, “This … this case with the one-eyed man – you are using it as a shield to stop yourself from obsessing over what happened last year. And I don’t think it’s working. I think you still see him, clear as day. I think you still feel him in your head, and I think that it’s scaring you. You’re getting confused, and suppressed emotions are resurfacing because of it.”

“I’m not scared, and my focus is entirely on the man locked in that padded cage right now. I was piecing together his story until you put a stop to it. You are impeding my progress by not letting me see him. And now you’ve made up some convoluted story to get me to talk about something I’m not ready to talk about!”

“Will, stop this! You tried to kill yourself for god’s sake! What would you have had me do? Brush it off? Pretend it never happened? I’m your doctor, and I have an obligation to you and to your employer. I had to make a judgment call, Will, and you are not fit for duty. You are not fit to continue investigating that man!”

Clearly, she’s hysterical. She’s out of her mind. She’s the one who is obsessed with my old doctor. She practically begs me to talk about him every chance she gets!

I’m not ready. I’m not sure I will ever be ready. What happened between him and myself is no one’s business but my own. I am the one who startles awake at night wondering if he’s sitting at the foot of my bed. I’m the one who is constantly peering over my shoulder as I pump gas, feed my dogs, or load up my boat. I’m the one who can’t stomach chicken soup or scrambled eggs anymore. She has no idea what’s going on in my head. She gets to keep living, breathing, flourishing, while I am stuck in purgatory, still waiting to atone for my sins.

“I know I need to clear my head,” I admit, “But what good is denying me my cases? Nothing's getting solved. The man is still unnamed. And I am making progress. A few more meetings with him and I know I can tell you what happened to him.”

Her lips scrunch up when she’s annoyed, and her legs always defensively cross. I’m not going to read too far into her body language because it always leads to trouble, and she hates it when I stare at her legs.

“Okay, Will, why don’t you tell me exactly what you've discovered about John Doe. I want to know what you’ve discerned, apart from the physical evidence we’ve already collected.”

I'm surprised she even bothered to ask.

“Well, the timeline begins in Quebec, probably six weeks before he was arrested. He made his way down the east coast until–“

“The evidence already says that, Will. You keep telling us you’re making progress. I want to hear what you have to say about the man. Who is he? Where did he come from before Quebec? Who is the boy?”

I can’t tell them what I know because I don’t know what I know. When I look into his eyes I see the past, present, and future all jumbled up into this triptych of chaos and death. I see revenge and forgiveness. I see pain and redemption. I see blood and fire. I see a great serpent. I see my death. I see _his._ But I can’t say that to her; I’ll look like an even bigger crackpot.

And what name do I give him? He’s a deceiver, a killer, a riddler, a warrior. In my head, I keep calling him _knower,_ because he does. He knows something, and despite his silent tongue, he does speak to me. His ravens still follow me in the night. They still perch outside my window, tapping on the glass, waiting to talk to me again. I speak to them, and somehow I know he’s listening.

I can’t call him psychic, that’s insane. I can’t call him a wizard because that’s even more insane. I don’t know what the hell he is, but I know I need to see him again. My blood boils and churns through my veins every time I think about him. He’s telling me things. He’s showing me what I need to see– what I need to do – where I need to go. He’s giving me the tools I need to fulfill my destiny, though what that means is still a mystery, because I don’t believe in fate.

But I have to give her something.

“He’s a slave – or he was. He was caged for a long time, years,” I tell her, “He came to this continent with men who were lost. He was lost. He was with a boy who was lost. He fought in Quebec and was severely injured. He survived – he hunted – he wandered down the coast. He camped out in the building we found him in. He was spooked by the police, attacked, and now he sits in his cell awaiting the swift hand of justice. I’m giving him a voice because I know he deserves it. He is not just a blood-thirsty murderer. He is something entirely different, and if you’d look in his goddamn eye you’d see it too.”

Her face is practically mournful. No one believes me. I wonder if I called him a cannibal, if they’d listen then.

She softly clears her throat to mask her contempt. “But why are you so obsessed with him, Will? Why is he so special to you?”

“Now he’s special to me? I can’t take an interest in a bizarre case like this without becoming attached to him?”

“You broke into the hospital to see him.”

“I was let in by an orderly, and it’s a prison. Let’s call it what it is.”

“Why were you so desperate to see him? Why are you still so desperate to see him? He doesn’t even speak to you.”

“They all speak,” I say. “The dead even speak, but no one is willing to listen. I listen. I listen to all of them and I give them a voice.” That was probably a little too cryptic, because she starts scribbling in her notebook. “What are you writing?”

“Will … do you hear them speaking now? In this room?”

“Oh for god’s sake! I’m not hearing voices!”

Her shoulders fall in obvious exasperation. “Can you look at this from my perspective? Can you see this from my angle as your doctor? You are not well. You are suffering from depression and some sort of delusion that stems from your relationship with your old doctor. You are becoming addicted to your cases because you feel close to him when you’re immersed in that world.”

“What world?! What am I immersing myself in?!”

“Death, Will – pain – anger – fear. You are punishing yourself. You are physically hurting yourself to feel closer to him. You are sacrificing your sanity to him.”

My head shakes because it’s simply not true. I am not obsessing. I am not reliving that pain. I’m not what she keeps saying … I’m not addicted to anyone. I don’t need him.

“I think it’s time for you to start accepting what happened, own that betrayal, own that anger, and begin to work towards healing. You are still a very fresh wound. You were deceived and physically maimed. I want to see you get to a point where you can live again, Will, not just survive.”

“I cannot live without forgiveness,” I finally admit, and it's true. I feel responsible for everyone's pain, and it is an excruciating burden to bear.

“Will, what happened to her is not your fault.”

“I don’t mean forgiveness from her.”

She sighs, and I can physically feel the pity radiating off her. “You don’t owe him anything, Will.”

They don’t understand me, and by God, they will never understand him.

“We’re done here,” I say, “I have to go.”


	13. Quarreller

* * *

When life feels out of control I do one of two things: I read alone, surrounded by dogs, or I fish. Today, in a fit of rage, I decided to head down to the dock with my pole. I had a hatchet to bury and my only outlet was to sail as far out as I could go and drop it at sea.

It’s true. I am becoming obsessive again, and not just with the man locked up and out of my reach, but with the man that is free and roaming Europe on a murderous whim. The noxious memory of the man who so callously used and tricked me still plagues my mind, and it is his hatchet that I so desperately need to bury.

For my sake and sanity, I approach the water with this single goal: enjoy the sea, cast my line, and dredge up and fling away the final thoughts I’d have of him.

He couldn’t ruin my life forever, and I know this. It would be unfair to myself and any people I may potentially bring into my boring and isolated world. I deserve more than to be deceived and toyed with for the entertainment of others. I deserve to regain my dignity, and this trip will do just that.

“Excuse me!” I yell as I approach an older man by a large flat-bottomed boat, docked upon the rocky shore. He looks up at me, somewhat appalled that I should bother him as he loads his jon boat.

“What, boy?” he asks, and I’m immediately puzzled by this response. No one’s called me “boy” since I was fourteen.

“I’m looking for a ride out. I won’t bother you, I just need to get my feet off land.”

He chuckles but still cocks a brow at my request. “I got space, sure, but can yer back take it? I’m going for flounder. Gotta get way out there. Don’t want you to tire your pretty little arms.”

Is this old man talking to _me?_ I’ve had FBI training, for god’s sake. I used to be a cop! I’m not normally offended by someone calling my physical prowess into question. I may not look like an athlete, but damn it, I can row a goddamn boat.

“I think I can handle it,” I snap.

“Alright, alright,” he scoffs, threading the oarlocks. “But I got flounder bait and it’s mine. You’re gonna need to get yer own.”

Bait, I forgot fucking bait. An ocean is stretched out in front of me – not a stream – and I have a single pole with an empty hook. Behind me, up beyond the moorings, is a time-forgotten bait shack – rickety and salt water worn.

“That place open?” I ask.

“It’s mine, and no it ain’t, so don’t bother lookin’. Only thing up there is a bucket of chum.”

He’s almost done loading the boat, so I hoof it up to the shack anyway. I don’t know what I’m expecting to do – maybe break a window and steal some chicken necks – but I stop just before I toss a piece of driftwood through the ramshackle window.

Outside the plywood door, nestled in the sandy stones is a bucket of fish heads. They catch my nose more than my eye, and I scoop out the biggest head and carry it back to the boat.

“What the hell are you fishing for with that?!” he asks me.

I drop the head in an empty bucket. “Whatever bites,” I say. “Bigger the better.”

We get a ways out before the old man starts baiting his lines. He casts a few and pulls up a couple flounder, but I can’t deny this anxious itch spreading across my skin. I want to go further out. We can still see land, and the water is calm.

I want some space – some distance between me and my life which is currently caught in an eddy of mental exhaustion. I need to think.

When the old man has all his lines in the boat, ready to bait again, I take my chance and start rowing.

“What the hell you doin’, boy? That’s my spot!”

“Let’s go out a little further – away from the inlet. It’s overfished here.”

The old man’s not convinced, but then again I chose a piss poor lie, considering he’s already caught a bucket full of flounder.

“Fishing’s fine right there, boy. Go back!”

I ignore him and keep rowing. I have much bigger fish to fry, or at least catch.

“I said head back!”

Habitually, I had begun carrying a gun after I was eviscerated. Trips like this don’t usually require such a feeling of power or safety, but I’ve been particularly vulnerable as of late, so I pull my firearm from the back of my pants and lay it between my shoes. The old man doesn’t say a word.

“It’s not loaded,” I say, still rowing farther out to sea. “But I have bullets, and I’m a lot stronger than you. If I need to throw you overboard I will. Please don’t make me do that.”

He stares at my face, not at the gun. He’s probably cursing himself for leaving his own revolver in the glove box of his truck.

“You stealing my boat?”

“I’m borrowing it for an hour. That’s it. I just want to cast my line and think.”

“Well, I wanna fish … way back there, so I think we gotta problem, boy.”

I don’t want to do it, because it’s not the safest practice on a boat, but I fish four bullets out of a pocket of my vest and load the gun.

“You can stop calling me boy, now.” I hold up the loaded gun, barrel to the sky, to show him my finger is not about to slip as the boat gently rocks with the morning tide.

“You must be a terrible shot if ya need four bullets to kill a man five feet from ya.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” I say, setting the gun back between my feet. “I may need to immobilize you – so I have one for each limb. But if it comes to that, I will row you back to shore and get you medical attentio after I’m done. I’m not a monster.”

“Not a monster, just a thief,” he hisses.

“Better a thief than a monster.”

He scoffs and shakes his head. I know it’s a shitty move to pull, but I’m only borrowing his boat. This whole exchange has me wondering why I didn't bring my own boat in the first place. I guess it would have been a hassle to haul it out here. And I don’t remember driving to the coast, either. Now that I think of it, a jon boat on the open water is a terrible idea. The thing doesn’t even have a motor.

I let all my worries cascade down my back. I have no time for doubts. I just commandeered a man’s boat, and as the day warms up, the waters are bound to get rough. Best to get all this over with quickly.

When we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere, I drop the cement-filled coffee can anchor, and bait my lone hook with the fish head. There is something extraordinary in these waters, and I’m looking forward to the challenge of catching it off guard.

“I wouldn’t drop yer line here,” says the old man, still sulking from the bow. “I don’t need any more monsters on my boat. Yer enough trouble for me.”

“I’m not a monster, and where’s your sense of adventure!?” I ask. “I have unfinished business with the creature down there.”

“And you think he wants a fish head? He’s got plenty of those. What makes yours so damn special?”

He has a point. Why would he want a fish head? This creature has a taste for men, not fish. I pull out a knife from my back pocket and unfold it with a snap. “Give me your hand,” I say.

“Are you fuckin’ nuts?!” The old codger tucks his hands under his arms.

“I need human flesh. Give me your finger.”

“No!”

He’s not going to cooperate. I almost start brandishing my gun again, but the beast probably doesn’t want this old man’s bony finger anyway. What he wants is me.

I reach up and stroke the outside of my ear. It would be rather fitting to catch the bastard with my own damn ear lodged in his throat. The irony is so salty to my tongue.

For a minute, I hold the blade flat against my temple and think. It won’t bleed that much, and I don’t need my ear to hear.

When I come out of my deliberation, the man is staring at me, his mouth agape. I think he’s questioning my sanity, but I would too if someone stole my boat, then dropped anchor in the middle of nowhere while they threatened to disfigure their own face.

My ear, though – it doesn’t seem quite right. It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. It feels like I’m tempting him with another piece of chum. It’s just a useless flap of skin.

I drop the knife in front of my face and lightly scratch the point across my cheek. I don’t feel it graze my flesh. In fact, I don’t feel anything. The knife is weightless in my hand. I don’t even feel my clothes on my back or my bruised throat anymore. I’m numb.

I lift the knife and tap the lens of my glasses. If there is one thing I have never been able to fully trust, it’s been my eyes. They lie to me a lot – but they have shown me the truth before – truth despite the lies.

He let me see him once – past the layer of decorated fabric and behind the halo of deception. I saw him with my own two eyes. Now that’s a far more fitting gift to return to him.

The old man covers his mouth as he watches the blade puncture my skin and follow the ridge of bone under my eye. When the knife suddenly stops, I twist it up, following the curve of my orbital socket, and my glasses clatter to the floor of the boat. The knife glides through my skin like butter until it meets my brow. I saw through the muscle and connective tissue until I finally feel the blade give with a gush of blood.

After a brief swipe of the wet knife over my pant leg, I work the tip deep into the socket until the nerve is severed and half my world goes black. This is a much more appropriate sacrifice. This is a meal from within my body. This is a delicacy he’ll savor.

I toss the fish head overboard and re-bait my hook with the bloody wad I’d pulled from my face. I cast out my line and I wait.

The sun is brutal. I can feel the heat on my neck. It’s the first sensation I’ve felt since getting in the boat, and it’s somewhat enjoyable until it begins to sear my skin.

Minutes turn to hours and I can hear the man shifting nervously across his bench.

“You alright mister?”

I’m no longer boy now. Apparently, it only takes a little auto-enucleation to garner a man some respect.

“I’m fine,” I chuckle, but as blood drips from my chin, spreading the pool that surrounds my gun, I realize that I may not look of sound body and mind. This man knows nothing of my past or of my history with the creature of the deep.

“Maybe we should head back to shore. The beast is probably sleepin’ this time a day.”

“The beast doesn’t sleep. Nice try, old man, and we are staying right here.” Then the tiniest tug jerks my pole towards the water. My heart races as I lean over the edge of the boat, staring into the pitch black water.

The line tightens and the reel buzzes as the creature takes off. I wait and stare in awe at what is transpiring. It’s happening. I caught him.

“You gonna set that hook?”

“I’m kind of hoping he’ll swallow it … maybe it’ll rip open his stomach.” I laugh, but I snap back the rod anyway. Better to be sure.

The beast’s pause is brief and my knuckles whiten around the pole, but I’m no match for that much mass powering through the water. The rod wrenches forwards and I slam my knees against sides of the boat.

The beast circles back around to slash its back against the hull, rearing up the boat. As we slam back against the water, my gun smacks me in the thigh. The bastard is close and he wants the rest of me, and I’m not letting him have another goddamn taste.

With the rod wedged between my knees and the deck, I aim my gun at the scaly mound charging the boat and empty the clip. Come hell or high water I want him dead.

The beast dives again and suddenly the line goes slack.

I scramble across the boat to peer down into the abyss.

“I think I got him.” I’m briefly relieved until I notice water bubbling in through two bullet holes in the hull. I’ll have to worry about that later. I glance up at the old man to find him still clutching my knife and the fishing line.

No. He didn’t …

“What did you do?!” I shriek, “You cut it?! Why would you cut the goddamn line!?”

It’s the blood loss, the dehydration, and the near fatal wounding of my greatest foe that sends me off the deep end. I stand and rush the old man, hurling him over the side of the boat.

He thrashes through the water, begging and pleading for his life, but my ringing ears hear nothing but the sound of waves crashing against this stolen opportunity.

He grips at the side of the boat, and with every clutch of his fist against the metal, my heel is waiting to grind into his slimy fingers.

“You’re a goddamn thief,” I tell him.

He begins to object, but a gurgle is all that escapes his blubbering lips. Then, like a gift from the gods, he never bothers me again, and I watch his body being pulled into the depths – now just a tasty offering to the one that got away.


	14. Mover of Constellations

* * *

I’d been temporarily allowed to return to my lecture hall, but I’m sure that decision is about to be considered premature. The class is fine, but with every self-inflicted injury, more and more speculation arises as to what is going on in my degenerating mind. Whispers across the campus are drawing attention to my mental affliction.

My lengthy filibustering has my boss impatiently waiting by the door and my students restless in their seats. I could have stopped fifteen minutes ago, but I’m not that excited to discuss the fresh bandages around my eye.

One of my braver students finally pipes up, pointing to the clock, and I have no choice but to release them.

The students file out and my boss doesn’t walk over – he saunters over, gnashing his teeth as he glares at the gauze.

“Care to explain, Will?” He nods to my eye.

“It was an accident.”

“Were you shaving off your eyebrows and just … slipped?”

“No, I was attempting to sacrifice my eye to a sea serpent.”

“See, Will, this is what scares me. I have no idea if that’s true or not.”

“Oh come on, I just fell. My balance is a little off, and with my hand injured –,” I stop because his head is cocked and he’s glaring at me. “I tripped over a dog.”

“Now _that,_ I believe.” He chuckles as the final student flees my lecture hall, letting the door slam behind her.

Satisfied that we’re alone, he continues, “You can stop sneaking around the hospital now.”

“And why’s that?”

“Your good friend there, old One-eye – he’s dead.”

What?

What did he say?

Dead? How can he be dead? That’s impossible.

My heart stops in my chest and I feel the blood drain from my face. “What are you talking about? What happened?”

“They said he attacked a couple orderlies. A guard apparently shot him after he’d taken a few healthy bites out of one of them.”

He’s just flipping through papers on my desk as he breaks this horrifying news. A man is dead. That man is dead.

“I don’t understand,” I say, “That can’t be right. He wouldn’t have attacked someone like that. It’s impossible. He’s not violent like that! You’re lying!”

“I’m not lying, Will.” He’s staring at me like he can’t believe I’d react like this.

“That’s wrong – no. He wouldn’t bite anyone. That’s not what he does. And if he did bite someone, he was provoked. Something happened. He wouldn’t have attacked unless he was threatened or someone broke a promise to him.”

His head shakes and his incredulous eyes burn into me. “What are you talking about? A promise?”

Suddenly I feel cold and cornered, ostracized once again. “I don’t know – it was a theory I was working on. I can’t believe no one let me see him ...”

“Well, I guess you don’t need to now.” He’s smiling like he just won some bar bet. I guess I’ve been put in my place. The man is dead and now my boss can toss my skills back into the field. He gets my full attention again, and that’s what everyone wants out of me – my undivided and unobscured attention.

But that’s not how this works.

To him, I’m a shot in the dark. I’m an experiment to see if I can give him what he wants. It’s all trial and error. Sometimes I’m on point. Sometimes I get stabbed by the point.

The one constant, regardless of the outcome of my cases, is that no one around me understands what I do or how I feel about it. Doctors question my sanity, agents roll their eyes at my conclusions, journalists laugh at my expense. This has never been a gift. It’s a curse. It’s a spell cast on me, and I’m too weak to break free.

To the FBI, these last few weeks have been just a paper trail, and my boss paid his fake respects by attending three of the cop’s funerals. To him, this case is closed. I, however, am left fractured and floundering like the widows who still can’t walk away from their husband’s fresh gravestones.

There is no closure for me. There is no relief. As quickly as these men enter my life, they disappear, but not before ensnaring me in their godawful traps. I am never released from those traps. They just build up until I can’t see through all the bars that surround me.

The iron is getting heavy, but after all these years of lugging those cages around, my muscles are strengthening from the weight on my shoulders.

“What did you find out about him anyway?” he asks. “You know, before I took you off the case.”

I collapse back into the chair at my desk. That man had answers for me. He was giving me the right questions to ask. He was showing me what I needed to see to break free, and it’s over.

“Hey. Will. What did you find out?”

I can barely hear him through the throbbing headache spreading behind my eyes.

“Forty-two-year-old male. He was dropped in Quebec a few months back, probably off a boat from Northern Europe … I don’t understand why he was killed though? Can no one in Baltimore apprehend a threat without killing them anymore?”

“Will, what else did you figure out?”

“He, uh, wandered down the coast … more than likely killing silently until he made it to Baltimore and he stopped. When did it happen?”

“Last night, around nine o’clock. Why do you think he stopped in Baltimore?”

“Last night?” I was going to go see him, but I fell asleep. I only had one shot to see him, and I blew it.

This can’t be happening. I could have stopped this from happening and I didn’t.

“He was ... probably meeting someone. I think.”

My boss leans against the desk and crosses his arms, vaguely alarmed by my stuttering voice and scattered attention. “Are we looking for someone else here, Will? A partner?”

I shake my head. I have no idea what’s going on. “It’s just … speculation.”

He nods, but he doesn’t really care. He’s giving me lip service because he wants to watch my reaction. He’s been talking to my psychiatrist. He wants to see for himself how obsessed I’ve become.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about him now,” he says. “That’s all over. So how are you doing Will? We all know you’re depressed … at least that’s what your doc says. But I don’t really believe you’re suicidal … Do you? You’re not crazy, right? I’d hate to think that you’re losing it again.”

Clever. This is as close to a truce as he’s going to give me – a leading question. It’s the only out he’ll offer me, so I have to take it. My hands are tied.

“No,” I say. “I’m not crazy. What’s been happening … it’s all a bunch of misunderstandings. Just an unfortunate combination of sleep deprivation and too much coffee.”

“Misunderstandings seem to follow you like a plague,” he says.

“I guess it comes with the territory. I hang out with sick people. I’m bound to get the sniffles occasionally.”

“It’s not becoming too much again is it?”

“No.”

He peers down his nose at me in that ‘you better think long and hard about how you answer the next few questions’ way.

“You seemed to be obsessed with this one … like Shrike or Ripper obsessed … but that didn’t happen, did it, Will?”

“No.”

“And if you got another psych eval – it’s not going to show anything strange, is it? If maybe I ask for one in say, four weeks?”

“No.”

“You’ll be back to work – full capacity – in four weeks time?”

“I’ll be right as rain in four weeks,” I parrot.

“I am happy to hear that, Will. In fact, I look forward to it. Evil never sleeps!” he hollers with a shit-eating grin. “Get some rest now, Will.”

He turns to leave, and I find myself asking, “Did anyone at the lab figure out his name?”

“Nope. He’s officially a John Doe.”

“And, uh, where’s his body going?”

He pauses and puffs out his chest. “You’re not that obsessed are ya, Will?”

“No. I’m just curious.”

“Well, you know what they say about curiosity.”

“Yeah, I know ... four weeks. I’ll see you in four weeks.”

He smiles and nods, officially placated, and turns to leave my hall. I have no intention of getting a psych eval in four weeks. What would be the point? In four weeks I’m not going back to the FBI. In four weeks, I’ll be on a boat to Europe to finally finish this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more information about my writing process, check out my [Writer's Notebook for this fic on Tumblr](https://joanielspeak.tumblr.com/post/176773749255/writers-notebook-the-fire-of-ill-friends).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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